


Make a Wish

by Cucuxumusu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Camels - Freeform, Desert, Drama, First Time, Horror, Hot, Humor, Kidd is a Djinn, Law also has powers, Luxury, M/M, Magic, Pining, Sarcasm, Sex Tension, Supernatural - Freeform, Travel, True Love, law-sarcasmTM, love fights, more luxury, werid magic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:30:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cucuxumusu/pseuds/Cucuxumusu
Summary: The desert it's a dangerous place. Law knows it as he travels through the hot sands to his new home: Alastaire, his new shiny prison. However, in the travel, when the bandits assault them, Law accidently opens a hidden door releasing a dangerous being that might change the whole world.Kidd has been locked by his own race, anger, and rage the only things filling his mind for centuries. So when a boy summons him back to the world breaking his curse, as a Djinn, Kidd is compelled to grant him a wish in return, but Kidd’s life hasn't ever been easy, and the boy apparently doesn't want anything.





	1. Hidden Doors

**Author's Note:**

> This is my project for the bigbang this year. But since the dates are changing constantly and my artist is not answering me, I will post 1-2 chapters a week and hope that before I finish she manages to post her art. I know I'm breaking the rules and I'm sorry. In any case thanks for casting the event, and for caring so much.
> 
> About this fic, it's based on several things, first of all Petra, one of the wonders of the world, and main inspiration of this fic. I also researched Muslim mitology about Djinns (don't expect me to be very precise) and a few more things, hope you guys like it. As always the characters are not mine and any resemblance with real people is pure coincidence. If you want musci to read this you can go to ambient mixer and pick the desert song u like the most.

Law covered his pale grey eyes with his hand to protect them from the piercing sun and carefully observed the vast horizon that stretched before him. He couldn't see anything yet between the dunes of sand, Alastaire remained a black little spot on a map, something in the distance, a faraway city riddled with legends which, however, was going to decide his future and fate.

Law had hated that city and its name since the day he had discovered the holy gift that God had given him and what having it meant for his life.

Alastaire was a city of prophets and oracles, a city where the few people that were " _touched by God"_ went to train and master their gift. It was a city where only a few could enter and where Law would spend the next ten years of his life learning and controlling his magic to then serve kings and emperors as was the tradition. It was a life that many dreamed of, full of luxury and prestige, living alongside those who invented history and attracted fame, with all extravagance and power anyone could desire.

But it was a life that Law didn't want to live, one he hadn't chose freely, and accepting it, would mean to abandon everything, his family, his friends and his own city, everything, for that empty fame and riches. Becoming one of the Sanieri meant becoming someone who Law had always detested, who left everything he had in search of wealth and prestige.

But he had no choice, his power has been growing madly since he discovered it, and even the own Saniei from his own city, the ones who had made the decision for him, had created great prophecies for him _"Law would become the greatest of them all", "Law needed to go to the holy city in the middle of the desert and train to become what everyone expected of him"_. False word from greedy people, people that despite it all, were more powerful than Law and had more influence. The decision had been made quickly, and no one had wanted nor being able to oppose it.

Sanieries were something everyone wanted in their cities after all. The powerful ones were even more prized, and the nobles of the city had wanted a new pet.

So here Law was despite his protest and outbursts, surrounded by huge solid soldiers carrying heavy weapons and curved sabers, and a few of the elder Sanieri of the city porting bedecked and extravagant turbans to cast their prized status. Escorting him on the journey through the deadly desert, towards the driest area of the world where the sacred city was settled. Law had left his family and old friends behind weeks ago, the departure had been difficult, but Law had also seen the pride in the eyes of his parents and brothers. Giving birth to one of the Sanieri was a pride for any family, Law had given them prestige and power with his birth, although he would not see them again, Law knew they would be happy and live a comfortable life without him.

The saddest part of all this was that Law had no regrets. The dark haired man had grown up knowing that one day he would leave everything behind because he was 'too different' to stay, too powerful not to be controlled. He had known he would have no home to return to, nor a family to guide him in life or friends to share his troubles and happiness. Since he was six and the gift has shone in him, Law had learned to not get attached to anything.

At first it had been difficult, when they had taken him to the sacred temple he had cried for his mom in the dark nights, but after some long and confusing weeks Law had just accepted it. He has always been an outsider since then. His parents had smiled at him when they came visiting him in the temple, but it was a polite smile, not a smile parents showed their child, people had treated him with respect, but also with a subtle fear and respect. The city had decided Law's life when he was six, his classes at the temples, his visits to the richest families to entertain them with his tricks...but they hadn't really known Law or ever asked for his real wishes.

Through his live Law had been an observer, an interesting thing to show on parties. He had never been a participant.

Even now the soldiers escorting him were to protect him on the road, technically to guarantee his safety, but Law also knew that they were his guards and jailers who would watch him and prevent him from escaping. Law was someone too valuable to lose him so stupidly, a brute diamond waiting to shine, he meant too much for the city, they had paid too much for his new education.

The young man sighed as the sun began its slow descent in the sky and the camel caravan kept going through the desert advancing inexorably. It was hot, too hot in this part of the world, even the wild wind blowing around them chapped his lips and made him suffocate. The thin and dark clothes protected him from the burns of the powerful sun, but they began to stick to his sweated skin, making the protective drawings that had been placed on his skin before leaving the city began to blur after so many days. The turban felt heavy, the clothe hiding his lower face from the oppressive heat asphyxiative.

They seemed to be crossing the end of the world at a slow pace, to where the maps ended, to the legendary Alastaire.

However Law strangely prefered the arid and dead place they were traveling now over the fanciful city. Here, the nature was different, harder, wilder, truer, Law had read about it in the books of the temple but now he felt the veins of his power burning with the accumulated energy of the place. _There was so much power_. Everything was so different and dangerous here, a little step out of place and you were dead within seconds. The scorpions and snakes crossing their path between the soft harmless dunes were the most poisonous ones in the whole world. Unable to afford second chances, all animals had become the deadliest predators in this difficult environment. Even the few plants that grew here, were covered with spines and thick skin that looked unbreakable.

The desert protected itself, annihilating anyone who wasn't prepared to enter it and face the consequences. It was almost a deadly test, miles and miles of sun-scorched sand, dune after dune after dune. Threatening to make them go slowly crazy as the legends said. They have yet to see a cloud or well of water, but thankfully they haven't found themselves immersed in one of the famous sandstorms either.

The desert seemed to be rejecting them in all possible ways, making the travel harder, not giving them any peace or any breathe.

Law liked it all, because strangely the desert reminded him of his own life, needing to protect himself from everything around him trying to conquer and use him, needing to escape the cage in which he was trapped, and needing to do something for himself that others had not previously decided for him. The desert represented a wild untamed freedom, one Law searched for desperately.

When the sun started to hide, the caravan stopped as it did every night, between two high dunes of hot sand. Panting camels stopped, men, exhausted for the heat and the trip, set up the small tents to protect themselves from the cold night, and lit a small fire in the center of it all to prepare the dried and spicy meat and one of the aromatic teas with mint that didn't taste right.

Law frowned as he studied the distant horizon again between the high dunes of sand that looked like gatekeepers preventing any escape. Only two more weeks, two weeks and he will arrive to his new prison and leave this raw nature behind. This was his last trip, his last freedom, as a wild untamed beast himself.

...oOo...

The night in the desert wasn't as dark as people thought it was, even as the three moons disappeared in the sky at once, hidden behind the huge dunes, the thousands of stars plaguing the sky would light up the night, providing light to all who ventured into the hostile desert in the most dangerous hours. The desert's night wasn't dark, and it wasn't loud either, there were no murmurs of taverns from the city, no birds singing to the night and no tree branches moving in the breeze. Not even the wind blowing through the dunes made the slightest noise while crashing into the soft sand.

All that silence and luminosity made Law's escape completely impossible and the task of the camp guards quite easy. He had already tried once and didn't come exactly as planned. However, besides his frustration, it made also impossible for anyone to attack them at night, bandits or enemies from other cities it didn't mattered. It was impossible for anyone to approach noiselessly without him being seen as a small shadow between the soft and elegant dunes. Nobody could assault them, and no one would be able to flee in time, the dessert might be a deadly place, but it also made it easier to detect intruders.

That night Law saw the guards relax with routine, exhaustion, and overconfidence. That night they were attacked with no one hearing or seeing anything.

Twenty men surrounded the campament in silence while most people were slept. Dressed in brown clothes, the color of the dunes and the desert, they seemed to come out nowhere with greedy looks and sharp weapons. Quickly, the camp became a battleground, the elders woke Law between screams, sleepy soldier's unholstered swords amid cries of war, but no matter what they did, it didn't seem to be enough to stop the sudden attack. The confusion and darkness were clearly the enemies best weapons and they knew how to use it. The soldiers fell under much stronger opponents that had been trained for years in this type of treacherous assault. They couldn't even plead for their lives before the attackers just stole it without a second thought.

In the darkest hour of the night, in the most remote place in the world, Law met, for the first time of his life, the famous desert bandits. Those who attacked the caravans, pillaged, and stole everything they could leaving no survivors. This was another defense of the desert, another protection against strangers, another deadly predator tanned after years of hunting.

The fight was fast and easy.

Law was quickly surrounded by the twenty strangers now covered with the soldiers' and other people's blood. His whole escort had died trying to protect him and now he was the last enemy to abate before the strangers could get their prize. Law had no escape in the plain environment, no friend, no weapon. Law could almost see the look of satisfaction in his attackers faces, they thought that victory was already theirs, after all, twenty man against one unarmed boy was a big advantage.

A man who appeared to be the leader gave a low and precise order, ten of the bandits advanced closing a circle around Law, stepping over the bodies of Law's old dead captors, preparing to give Law the final blow so they could go get the treasures of the huge caravan.

Law closed his eyes and took a deep breathe. He knew how to fight, but they were just too many and he didn't have any weapon to use in his situation. The guards hadn't allowed him even that.

He just didn't know what else to do.

Carefully he focused his mind on the power running through the veins of his spiritual body, more powerful than ever, increased by the desert around him so filled with heat and the magic of thousand years. And then he pulled at it. He pulled at the desert's vastness, at its heart, its wilderness, it's huge power. And he kept pulling and pulling until the desert's power spilled from Law's body, who was unable to contain such power, to the real world.

The place exploded around him.

Fire, flames, wind, sand, everything seemed to envelope him in a small whirlwind, protecting him from the attackers and the whole world. Law heard cries, screams of pain, pleadings for mercy, howls of terror, but he refused to open his eyes.

It had been long since he had used his power, the last time had been a disaster, and he had been containing it until he reached Alastaire where he could learn to use and understand it without causing troubles. But now, as he felt the immense power accumulated in the place, flowing through his body, Law felt strangely calmed, in peace, in harmony with everything around him, as if using what had been given to him was the right thing to do and repressing it for years had only hurt him further.

The tension of the desert, that strange magic that had been accumulating tension since Law had set foot in the place, finally unleashed. All that power was finally liberated through Law. As if he was the channeler, as if the desert had been waiting just for him.

Law almost felt in his body how that immense place seemed to finally accept and welcome him as one of its own.

But suddenly the torrent stopped. As if it no longer could channel more, as if there was no more power to release. Law fell to the ground as the storm that he had summoned faded into nothingness covering everything with fine sand. The camp was in chaos, the tents were on fire, the camels had fled or died, and the corpses of his men, along with fourteen of the attackers, lay on the ground covered with the fine sand and completely motionless.

Law felt his mind clouding. He didn't know what had just happened. He had never used or felt so much power in his city. He didn't know what he had released. But after the storm faded he felt immensely tired. As if while releasing so much power, he had also released his own strength. He was breathing hard and he didn't even know if he could even stand. There were still six bandits, including the leader who now glared at him and clenched his teeth as his men lay dead on the ground before him.

Law was going to die.

He felt his mind approaching unconsciousness while the world lost sharpness. The bandits advanced, now that Law couldn't move and his companions had died, the end of all this was clear. Law however was not afraid, he just didn't have time for it, his body simply reacted to the attack rising his arms and instinctively protecting himself. Silently he waited for the blow that would end his useless life, that would end it all and free his soul.

But it never came.

When he opened his eyes, the bandits were on the ground before him, dead or unconscious. Law didn't know if it was one or the other, but it was clear they weren't moving anymore. The world was beginning to turn black as the night and the leader had murder in his eyes.

It was then, at the verge of fainting when a new person appeared beside him, a tall man who argued with the leader of the bandits the only one still alive in the camp apart from Law. He couldn't understand them with his clouded mind but Law thought it would be another bandit, a new enemy, a new man to fight against, but when he focused he realised his clothing was not quite like the others.

The new stranger was not wearing the brown camouflage suit as the rest, but black, long pants and a pair of black scaring boots with a twisted tip. His chest was bare to the cold night air, no shirt or coat protecting him from the cold, but still, his chest was covered with gold jewelry and powerful muscles. A sword inlaid with precious stones decorated his waist dangerously, and his bright red hair seemed to float in the air without a turban to hide it.

Law had never seen anyone like him, he looked powerful just by standing there doing nothing. Law didn't know where he had came from, he had not been with his camp men or with the attackers, he had just _appeared_ out of thin air.

Suddenly, the argument between the two strangers seemed to end and the last bandit screamed in front of Law while his body twisted itself in an impossible position. When he fell to the ground, broken in a strange way, the boss didn't get up again. He never would.

Law numbly realized he was dead. So, so dead.

The man of black clothes then turned to Law with a look on his face that Law didn't understand. Joy, hatred, malice, sorrow and a deep gratitude. It was such a big mix of things in those golden eyes, that Law couldn't understand it with his mind falling into darkness.

However Law did felt afraid then, almost panicked. He had not feared the bandits, or the time of his own death, as if deep down he knew that they would not happen, but somehow he was afraid of this man. An old and indescribable fear that didn't really come from him, but from the desert now chained forever to Law's existence.

The stranger leaned over him, clearly about to say something, his eyes shone as he smirked wryly, as if not used to his own face. Something in his eyes was incredibly dark. Law realized then that this man could be the deadliest predator of the place, even more than the desert itself. But Law could take no more, he had never done this, he had never fought, nor had he killed anyone.

_He had never opened a door like the one he had just opened._

When darkness took his mind, Law received it with open arms even though his life was in more danger than ever.


	2. Hidden Palaces

When Law opened his eyes again, he knew quickly he was no longer in the great emptiness that was the desert. Instead of the clear sky with the powerful sun over his head he had been waking up to for days, a reddish brown ceiling with intricate patterns of brown colours and made of polished stone covered his head. He was in a warm room, but with the coverture of a ceiling and the breeze that filled the place, Law felt as if he had found paradise after the days he had spent under scorching sun.

He could finally breathe without burning his throat or chapping his lips.

Carefully, the young Sanieri, sat up on the bed and observed his surroundings curiously, yet slightly alert and confused for what had happened to him to end in this place. The vision that received him however was even more impossible and surreal. The room was spacious, clean and clear, and formed a perfect semicircle delineated by an impressive red colonnade that made up as windows, and that showed a perfect view of the desert at his feet. As if the place had been built on top of a mountain to guard the desert. A watchtower of old times?

Law for a moment just marveled at the breathtaking view of the huge sand dunes spreading for kilometers in the distance, that could be seen through the thin white curtains swaying in the breeze between the columns.

The clean marvelous place looked so old, almost abandoned by time, but also rich and extravagant, as one of the ancient palaces where the nobility had lived in powerful empires, carving their homes on the bare rock to create works of art. However, the room where Law was, despite the old architecture, appeared to have been rebuilt recently. The floors have been cleaned and covered with rugs, oil lamps have been placed back on the pedestals, and the furniture has been repaired and provisioned.

Luxury just surrounded Law.

Next to the huge and fluffy bed where Law had sleep was a small low table laden with food that Law had never seen before. There were hot and golden flatbreads on plates of pure laton, large bowls of olives, eggplant and chest peas patês, roasted potatoes with spices, and a mouthwatering golden and juicy lamb leg. There were huge pots of brown rice, chickens stuffed with figs and nuts, and small biscuits of dates and honey next to the teapots full of steaming mint tea and milk.

A feast like Law had never seen.

But that was not everything. Law could see, through the only door that was in the room, a huge bath carved into the stone floor from where scents of jasmine, and patchouli came to him with the freshness of cold, perfect water for a bath in desert. That other room was darker as it was fully inside the mountain, but was lit from the floor to the ceiling with small candles anchored to the walls creating an ethereal atmosphere.

It was a fancy place, refined and luxurious, full of things that Law had never seen before nor imagined.

For a moment, the dark young man found himself not knowing what to do, should he try the food? Should he bathe and get rid of the dirt from the trip?. He didn't even knew if the drawers full of clothes of silk and linen that teemed the bunkers around his bed would be for him.

Everything was too beautiful, too perfect and peaceful. Even he himself felt too weird. His body felt heavy, like when someone makes too much exercise and it costs him just to move the next few days. Law still felt the desert within him, as if it now had become an integrated part of himself, as if after the night before he had ended up being attached to it by a weird magical trick. The energy that the desert had had for so many weeks, had completely disappeared leaving an inert but sentient land. As it should be. But still, the fear of the night before remained, appeased momentarily but present.

Law felt incredibly uneasy.

It was then when he saw him: The man in black. For a moment, the dark haired boy didn't understand how he could have overlooked him, he was the only black and intense figure in a room full of pale shades and light browns. It was something that stood out as too dangerous, too tense and alert in an atmosphere of luxury and extravagance. Law still remembered what had happened the night before, was still struggling to understand it all without the slightest success.

The man had not been in his own camp, nor had he been with the attackers. Law didn't know where he had come from, had he saved him? Had he kidnapped him? For what purpose? Where the hell was he?

Inside Law, the desert, ignoring his personal monologue, rose in a sandstorm, panicking and trying to flee from this place and the black clothed man. Law shifted uncomfortably in the bed frowning at the unexpected reaction and feeling the panic enter his own mind too.

The stranger finally turned to him with those intense golden and bright eyes. Law however just frowned at him hiding his own fearful reactions without knowing why, as if an instinct told him he could not show weakness in front of this man.

For a moment no one said anything and they only watched the other silently, Law alert and on guard ready to run or attack if it was necessary, the other just watching him with a neutral and focused look from which Law couldn't read anything. He had actually some fascinating eyes, full of power and a dangerous darkness. Law was certainly that he could spend hours observing them, but they were also disturbing in a way, too intense and full of secrets that could haunt a man soul.

They were so old.

Law finally had to look away unable stand it, and the stranger, smirking annoyingly pleased, finally approached Law's bed of ruffled silk and fluffy pillows.

"What's your name?" asked the stranger slowly. And his voice didn't seemed to come from him, but seemed to reverberate from all points of the room, dark, arrogant, ancient. Law felt goosebumps run his back just by hearing it. It didn't sound right.

"Trafalgar Law" he quickly replied. It wasn't as if his name was a secret, nor did he want to start on the wrong foot with this man. That alone would be a suicide his instinct told him.

The stranger then stopped between his bed and the impressive mountain of food and crossed his arms elegantly. His naked muscles moved with the swelling gesture and he looked even bigger and more intimidating in the middle of the pale soft room. Law gritted his teeth and frowned again slightly irritated and jealous of the raw animalistic strength the other clearly possessed.

Who was this man? Where he was? Where did all these things have came from? Questions piled up in his mind along with the desert and the annoying fear, but Law didn't know whether to ask them or not, this man could be another enemy, he could lie, could hurt him. It was better to find the answers himself and not be tricked so easily. Law had learned his lessons long ago in his own city where people had tried to use him for their own purposes.

"What are you?" the stranger of golden eyes and hair the colour of blood said interrupting his thoughts, now, with an irritated and tense tone in his voice that Law didn't quite liked.

The question this time was also a weirder one. Male? Human? A Sanieri? What was he supposed to answer? For a moment Law observed the stranger, looking for something that would tell him what the other wanted to know exactly. But the other was like a stone wall, and Law was still a bit wary of looking into his golden eyes too much, the desert seemed to explode into a crying mess inside him every time he did, and that only unnerved him a fucking lot.

"Human?" he finally replied with a shrug as innocent and unthreatening as possible.

The stranger frowned and looked plain angry with his answer.

'Well done, Law'. He was going to have such a quick death.

"No, you're not human, a human would not have been able to set me free as you did" said the stranger changing the weight of his body to his other foot and watching him as if he wanted to split him in half to find the answer himself. Creepy. And a bit scary too. Law always found the worst ones. It was his personal talent

"...What are you?" the man repeated "Creatures like you didn't exist before...I don't know whether to consider you an ally or an enemy"

Law again felt completely lost and he was tempted for a moment to smile at the other like an idiot and nod pretending that the other was right. Maybe this man was mad, because speaking with him felt like trying to find the meaning of a new hieroglyph or learn a new language. Law had freed what exactly? They had not existed before? The Sanieri had always existed! God had created them millennia ago with humanity, a present to the powerless humans, a guide for them in the dark. Has the man been living under a rock? How old was this man? He looked no older than thirty physically, but again, his eyes were a different matter, they looked just too old, too tired and exhausted from living, like the elders of Law's village.

"Who are you?" Law said finally turning the conversation to the other, saving his ass from more weird questions, and starting at the beginning of every conversation.

"Eustass Kidd, first son of the house of Ifrit" replied the other as his eyes seemed to cloud for a moment, again the darkness taking control of the gold sparks.

More questions crossed Law's mind tirelessly. The curiosity and fascination for this unreadable man who had emerged from nowhere were getting worse, and Law knew what happened when he obsessed over something. It would be better to step away, keep quiet and not talk to this dangerous man before he got tangled in his life.

"And what are you?" he asked yet instinctively, repeating the second strange question to keep the conversation going on harmless lands.

The man however looked up and stared at him for a long moment, intently, while in his mouth a slow smile loomed making the desert tremble again.

His answer was an easy and simple one this time.

"A Djinn"

...oOo...

Eustass Kidd opened up his mind and his body stretched over the place not yet believing what had just happened a few hours ago. He was back in the world! He was free again! He could breathe and feel the sun warming his human skin, and the magic flowing through his veins with new power. Everything around him seemed perfect, real, and incredibly beautiful, as if he was seeing the world from the first time. He was finally free.

However, along with the feeling of euphoria, Kidd felt also huge tension. As if there was a bomb waiting him to explode. This was not possible, this could only be a trap. The world couldn't have changed much over the millennia he had been trapped.

Trapped by his own race. Rage bubbling inside him ready to drown him. Iron bars preventing any attempt of releasing it. Loneliness. So much loneliness.

Kidd breathed in the warm sun and contained the dark memories. Still this was strange. The fact that no other Djinn had come fight him after his release already said a lot about how things were. To be true, Kidd couldn't feel his comrades anywhere, as if his race had been extinguished, as if the few ones who remained in the current world didn't even remember him and what he had done.

Kidd supposed that could only be an advantage for him right now. He was again free, he could do whatever he wanted, he could talk, and breathe, and feel... although that all may also be a problem. Kidd didn't know what to do now that he had regained what he had fought for, the possibilities were too many, overwhelming, and he didn't know which one to choose first. He didn't have a goal to fight for. He didn't have a home to return to, no family waiting for his come back, no lover to warm his bed, nor a friend to talk to, and truly he didn't want to find one, not so soon.

Alone. He was so alone. Kidd contained another shiver.

The Djinns were extraordinary creatures born from the purest fire at the beginning of the world and the warm light of thousand suns, and together, with the angels and the human race, they formed one of the three intelligent races that had conquered the world. Maybe they did not have the immense immortality of the angels, they may not have the favor of God as did humanity, but they were also special in their own way.

They could change the reality that God had created, become what they wanted, roam the world as the hot desert air, or a tornado destroying villages, they could create things out of nowhere, change them to their liking, obtain everything they wished for.

That's why they didn't hoard any kind of material things as humans did with money or food, and why they also weren't as the angels who lacked free will but desired God's approval above anything. No, for a Djinn the most important things were deals, trades, debts in exchange for favors, the ability to make someone kneel before after a promise. A powerful and respectable Djinn was the one who owned thousands of favors, who had thousands of people pending of any of his desires. That was the true power.

However, being the social beings they were -as humans, as angels- Djinns also had a nobility, a hierarchy among their people, houses, clans and families. You could be a powerful Djinn with lot's of favors under your arms, but you still had to follow the rules, and laws, and bow respectfully under your superior. Deals might be the most powerful thing in their society, their daily money, but appearances were everything they had as the lures and tricksters of the world.

Therefore breaking a deal with a Djinn was a death sentenced to any creature. A Djinn who broke one of his own was considered someone without honor, broken, and was immediately killed by the rest of his family, his wicked and untrustworthy existence destroyed from the world. They were beyond that, deals could be manipulated, twisted, but never broken. It went against his very nature.

Kidd had had both things for years: power, and nobility. The house of Ifrits, his family, was the most powerful of the five existing ones, and Kidd also had have an ability to negotiate never seen before in any Djinn. Kidd had been able to intimidate a rock into doing what he fucking wanted. He had been a prince among his own, he had been immensely rich, and he had always had what he wanted and desired. Life had been perfect, beautiful.

Until everything had changed.

Kidd still remembered how the war had begun, a stupid discussion had started between two houses and suddenly they were facing each other, some in favor, the others against them. Kidd didn't even remember what the discussion had been about, but chaos had quickly broken among his people. Kidd had seen his wealth decrease as people died taking the favours they owed Kidd to the other world, disappearing into nothingness. Until finally his own house had been destroyed. Kidd remembered seeing the bodies of his family mutilated by their own people, those spirits full of fire and light that were all Djinn in their immaterial form, broken irretrievably and disappearing with the wind.

Alone.

Kidd had seen his ancient world destroyed in just a decade, everything he had believed in broken, and everything he had fought for derided by the stupid war.

Kidd had fallen into madness then.

With a power never seen before among the Djinns, the respected creature had avenged his family and brought fear upon his enemies. He had fought against the other houses, destroying mountains and continents to get to them, changing the shape of the world with his power and destroying everything he could see.

His rage had been so great, and he had felt so betrayed.

The few survivors of the war had quickly worried about him and his immense power, the war had ended some centuries before, and peace had returned to establish in their world, but Kidd still remained out of control, his grieving and hate too great no matter how much he killed. So a group of the oldest among the Djinn had finally decided to take an extreme and final solution: to lock him and restrain him from doing further damage.

This was another common practice among his people, but it was usually reserved as punishment for the younger ones, not for someone as powerful and wealthy as Kidd had been. . In the old spell, the spirit of the Djinn was chained to a material object, a ring, a bracelet, a lamp, and, for a number of years, the poor soul was obliged to fulfill the wishes of the mortal who had that object. Usually it was a form of humiliation for the arrogant ones, since they were made to grant free favors to a race that they considered less powerful than them, and usually the punishment had also a time limit or a limit of wishes that the genie had to concede until he could be released again.

However, in Kidd's one the last condition had not been fulfilled, there had not been a time or magic limit, the elders had feared him so much for it, many had thought that if Kidd was released again he would end up destroying the world itself. So they had locked him up forever in the vast desert that he himself had created with his own fury in search of revenge.

And one thing was for a mortal to invoke a little Djinn out of a small ring, and quite another to be summoned to the world from every little grain of sand in the vast desert.

It had been an impossible task and an inescapable prison.

Over time, Kidd had regained his reason, and the fury and rage against his people and his prison had vanished. He finally ended up accepting that what had happened was his own fault alone. His people had have no other option, they had have to shut him out to protect themselves and the world, but the knowledge of it didn't help solving the problem nor his frustration. Kidd was locked, and certainly no one could release him, after all, there was no human with a power to summon the whole desert.

The years had passed in solitude, and Kidd had knew he would eventually go mad from the punishment, for being locked for so long, for his existence stretching thin to reach the far corners of the desert leaving him weak. Soon he forgot how the sun felt on his skin, how the wind tousled his hair or how food even tasted. He couldn't even remember the feel or taste of another being's skin. There was nothing there in this prison, just him chained to the huge desert unable to move, his thoughts and eternity.

Or at least, Kidd had thought so until last night.

Kidd, in his intangible form, invisible to the human eyes, watched the man who had freed him so easily. After their previous conversation the young man now ate, clearly hungry, from the tray that Kidd had prepared just for him. The redhead had lived with humans for some time and had had enough encounters with them to know the needs and appetites that tempted them. And so the boy stuffed his mouth full with the chickens and naans, moaning in pleasure and looking incredible human and innocent.

There was the other problem again, Kidd didn't know if this stranger before him was just human.

Humans couldn't possess magic. Magic was an unique quality of the Djinns, which made them be themselves, which allowed them to modify reality. But this man had managed to free him and break the curse that had been imposed upon him.

He had invoked the entire desert and Kidd with it.

Kidd didn't understand it, the boy also seemed unaware of what he was and what he had done, and curiosity and questions raced through Kidd's now awakened mind. Kidd could even feel other beings like this man, humans with magic, walking on the world elsewhere next to kings and queens. But none seemed as powerful as the boy before him who seemed to have trapped the desert inside him.

The world had changed a lot since the last time Kidd had walked on it, his people were missing, there humans had acquired new powers, and the old Djinn didn't even know what to do with his newfound freedom. Should he fight again for the revenge after his imprisonment? Should he just forget everything and try to live the rest of his life in peace now that he was free?

Everything looked and felt different around him, even himself. Kidd felt as if he was learning to live again, to walk, to breathe. However there was just one thing Kidd was completely sure of: the boy, the one who was now licking honey from his fingers in that hypnotizing and captivating way, the one he didn't really trust, had released him, and, therefore, Kidd owed him a huge big favor.

...oOo...

Law sighed contemptuously when he felt the bathwater cool his skin and clean it after weeks in the dusty desert. After travelling for so far trying to save the water for the long journey, taking a bath seemed almost like a waste of the precious liquid, however, Law, no mattered his first doubts, didn't even hesitate for more than two seconds before getting into the huge tub. Bathing was just magic, something restorative in a physical and a mental way, and Law had missed it so much.

Everything was nice in the grotto, everything was thought to perfection, the steps leading down to the perfectly sculpted pond, the thousands of crystal bottles full of soaps and perfumes on the edge of it, the dim light, the relaxing sight. The temperature there seemed to even descend to help him relax.

Law felt his body shut down while he rubbed off the ritual drawings from weeks ago along with the sand and sweat. Law devoted himself to focus solely on the bath for a moment, in the cleaning, in the rubbing, and not on what had just happened, and in how a stranger who claimed to be a Djinn had just disappeared before his eyes.

Law sat on the floor covered with convoluted tile patterns on the small pond thinking in how this could just be all an hallucination: the man, this strange place in the middle of nowhere, what had happened the night before...But then where was he really? Had he died? What was happening?

Law knew about the Djinns, like everyone else, many legends and stories were told about them, but it stayed as that: stories. The Djinns didn't really exist, what just happened could only be a joke. Maybe the red-haired man was another Sanieri and this has been a prank. Yeah, he was just a Sanieri who had killed a man, created a house without a balconniere, furniture and with everything someone would need and desire.

Law wanted to laugh sarcastically. Maniacally. Hysterically?

No, that was impossible, the Sanieri had power, but it was a limited power. Some could summon thunder, handle fire, create illusions, but only a single skill per person. Law apparently had some link with this desert, but that was all, he couldn't do more, meanwhile the red-haired man seemed to have created everything from scratch, evaporated himself, and killed a few bandits.

If he was a Djinn that would explain it, his incredible power, his intense and deep golden eyes, his flamboyant clothes, the way the desert seemed to fear him, how he had disappeared at will. As Law recalled, the Djinns could change shape, take whatever form they felt like, they could even take human form if they wanted and deceive humans themselves.

Law shivered by just remembering the appearance of this one Djinn who had helped him. Too much power. Too disturbing. Too attractive and tempting for his eyes.

Law still needed answers for everything that was happening, at first he had thought that the man was crazy, but maybe it was he himself who was losing it. Normal, if he considered it, after so much sun, lack of water and traumatic childhood. He still needed to talk to the creature despite his own craziness.

The desert was restless inside him, which meant that the 'Djinn' or whatever he was should still be around. Creepy. Again. He shouldn't be feeling this things! Raising his voice slightly, while still deep in the water and completely naked, Law tried to call him just to see what would happen.

"Djinn?"

Immediately the world changed shape before him. As if the darkness of the room joined between wisps of smoke, slowly making a way for the powerful creature. The Djinn appeared then sitting on the edge of the pond with the arrogance that all nobility of the world seemed to have. One leg, now without the twisted boots, sank into the pond of water in a provocative way, wetting the cloth of his black trouser, while the other folded against his strong naked chest, holding the weight of his arm.

The redhead looked at Law again with eyes unblinking, straightly, holding Law's gaze in that way that made the Sanieri incredibly nervous, as if the other had every right to watch him as he pleased, as if Law was just a curious phenomena he couldn't decipher.

Law looked away from him feeling strangely and literally naked before the other, despite the darkness of the place and the water covering him to his chest. The questions in his mind faded then, leaving him with a blank mind, and for a moment they stood there in silence, the Djinn watching him in an unnatural way and Law trying to not return the gaze.

Awkward. And again he was naked. This hasn't been his brightest idea.

"You look better" said finally the creature with his dark sultry voice.

Law's eyes flickered to him for a moment and then nodded without saying nothing. He felt better, not just for the bathroom, the rest, and the good food, it was something else. After the power release from last night Law found himself breathing more comfortable, quieter, without the strain he had have before.

"Why did you call me? Is there anything you want?" asked the creature breaking the silence for the second time and looking at him again with that intense look that made Law nervous and a bit weirded out, as if the question was incredibly important to him "Anything you wish? Anything you need?"

Law frowned at the questions. Why was he asking this? Why was he being so insistent and serviceable? Offering him everything while not knowing him in the last?

Then he remembered it. And smirked knowingly to the other. The Djinn granted wishes, favors, but normally this was in exchange of something else. There was usually a payment. There were thousands of stories of Djinn deceiving humans, offering absurd things in exchange of a bad worded wish, twisting words, looking for ulterior motives.

Law thought for a moment about it. Did he want to make a deal with this being? Was there something he wanted enough to pay a Djinn for it?

Law remembered the freedom he had desired so much for years, but now, after the incident of the night before, he realized that he already had it. Alastaire's nobles surely would be worried when Law didn't arrive to the city, however, when they send people to seek him and they saw the disaster that had happened -the dead people and a devastated camp- they would surely realize that they had been assaulted. And if Law's body was not among the dead, it meant that they had captured him.

People captured were never seen again, no one find them, no one would worry or search Law in the vast desert.

Law was free to do whatever he wanted except returning back to his city or go forwards to Alastaire. Not being able to return to his home city was still a knot in his chest, he had gotten attached despite his plans, but it will be better for him not to return to that cold and distant place where he had no one to trust. His family would live with his prestige despite his missing, and the nobles of Alastaire would have less students and less work to do.

The situation was too perfect.

"No" Law finally replied to the Djinn's questions with the sad truth. He didn't have any wish, he had never had any since people had decided his life for him, crushing every wish under their own ones. Now that he has the opportunity, now that he could chose for himself, Law just didn't know what to do with the offer, he had never thought he would get this far, he had never thought about what to do after he regained his liberty.

"No?" repeated the Djinn with a disbelieving frown of his elegant brows "Nothing? I can give you whatever you want! Money, lovers, palaces, food...anything!"

Law thought the creature was sounding slightly desperate now, and even more creepy. So in consequence more questions arose in his mind. Still, he shook his head slowly to the other while looking into his eyes, to let the other see that he was telling the truth. He didn't want anything, he didn't even know what he was going to do from now on.

"Why do you ask?" Law inquired, curiously by why the other was insisting so much, and why he seem angry that Law had not accepted his deal.

But oddly enough, this time it was the Djinn the one who dodged Law's curious stare and tightened his grip around his leg with a tense look. Law knew then that the redhead would not answer him, that the creature was hiding something that might be important for him to know. Law would get to it at some point, he had always been smart and had known how to analyze people, maybe the Djinns were the best negotiators in the world, but Law was not far behind them.

So the tanned boy dropped the subject for now and just focused on another problem he had been worried about since he had woken up: "Why there are no doors in this place?" There was only the balconade, the room, and the groot.

The Djinn looked back at him as if moved by a puppeteer. There was something supernatural and dangerous in this being, something scary that made the desert swirl and tremble inside Law, it shouted something at him, to not piss the Djinn off, to be careful, but Law has never been good at obeying orders.

"So you can't leave" the redhead replied without emotion, in plain normal words, just a statement, but clearly alert to Law's reaction to it.

Law stared him for a moment incredulous "So I am your prisoner then?" He said asking for the big ugly elephant in the room.

This just couldn't be happening.

The Djinn bowed his head to the side frowning at the term, but eventually, he solved his own debate and simply whispered "Maybe".

'Maybe my ass' Law didn't even hesitate in his next sentence. This. Couldn't. Be. Happening. "Then I wish for you to let me go"

The Djinn frowned even more, darkly, sexily? -Law was so fucked- and clearly upset with him for even asking that. He leaned back in the bathroom supporting his weight on his strong hands and looking just intimidating. He even sighed and rolled his eyes in the universal 'don't be an idiot' gesture.

"I can't do that"

After such a contemptuous response, after calling him an idiot in his own face, Law found his anger and without thinking much about what he was doing -a thing he seemed to be doing often recently- rose from the water ignoring his nakedness, and moved towards the Djinn with clenched fists.

At the beginning of all this he had fucking risked his life in the desert knowingly, on the attack he had thought that everything was over, and yet he had accepted it all. He had been prepared to die then! But he had tasted freedom now. Now that he had recovered what he most wanted, his life and his destiny, he was not going to allow this weird being to take it back. He had not left a prison to fall in another.

"Why not?!" He asked the Djinn furiously who was looking at him with surprise on his face as Law strided through the water towards him. "You said you could give me what I wanted, why can't I have this?!"

Law finally stood in front of the other, at a distance of just half a step from the lying figure of the redhead. Naked, furious, ultery pissed, and yet again helpless, impotent to decide his own life.

However, despite his furry, the look of the Djinn changed.

His eyes seemed to turn lighter, his breathing seemed paralyzed in his chest as, slowly, his eyes travelled over Law's body, studying every curve, chasing each drop of water, turning even more bright, and more and more hungry.

Law then realized what he was doing, and knew he had to cover herself from that look, but the anger was still there, his pride still burning to even think about a strategic retreat. Instead he wanted to punch the asshole for even thinking about that now. So without the slightest shame Law glared back at the Djinn in that intense challenging way he had learned to use when he was too young.

It was then when he felt the air caress his bare skin. His naked back, his thin hips, every naked skin, in a subtle way that clearly belonged to the Djinn lying in front of him with starving eyes. But as quickly as it had appeared the touch vanished, the eyes of the creature retook the dangerous dark tone, looming viciously in the dark room. The desert retreated inside Law, scared, his own anger vanished and turned a bit scared.

"Because I say so" answered the Djinn before vanishing into the thin air again, leaving the dark haired boy with a raging answer in his lips.

...oOo...

Kidd heard the dark haired human inside the room breaking things. Vases, the cushions invading every corner, the candles in the bathroom, and as he did so, the boy would not stop shouting insults that would make the most robust sailor blush in shame. For a moment the old Djinn was even tempted to roll his eyes at the childish reaction, for a moment he was mildly impressed with the extensive vocabulary the boy had, and couldn't help the smirk spreading on his face.

But then he hadn't disappeared from the mortal world to just ignore the furious boy and a discussion he didn't want to have. No, he had done it mainly to face the strange reaction he had just had to the human, and prevent any complications. Kidd didn't know what to think of that boy yet after their only two conversations, but from the first moment something has been terribly wrong.

When he had been released back into the world, instead of dissolving himself in the air and stretch the arms of his power as he has been wanting to do for centuries, Kidd had killed the boy's attackers and had protected him. That day, instead of walking on the world, plunging into the ocean or creating vortices in the desert celebrating his freedom, Kidd had spent time building this extravagant room in one of the desert cliffs for the human. He had given him food, he had tried to make him comfortable, he had given him everything someone could need, and asked for nothing in return.

Even now he had felt a strange desire arise in him when the boy had stood before him completely naked in the bathroom, challenging him with those gray eyes, but exposed completely for just his eyes.

Kidd didn't understand his own behaviour, he had never felt so desperate and hot for physical contact with another being, nor had he had the need to take care of someone apart from himself.

On the one hand, he understood the part of the desire, Kidd had been locked for centuries on the moor land, he had spent millennia without touching the skin of another living being, without feeling the pleasure of making sweet love to someone, and hearing their moans and gasps. And the boy was definitely attractive. Tanned skin sunburned by the desert, a thin but athletic figure, and lovely gray eyes the colour of stormy days. He would have become a king's courtesan in ancient days with that looks, would have made nations kneel with a smirk from those lustful lips.

Kidd had found him attractive the previous day in the desert, half unconscious, covered in sweat and looking at him with those dazed eyes. Yesterday Kidd had felt the need to protect him and care for him -maybe the reason he had built a fucking palace for the boy in a night- but today, after seeing him completely naked in the bathroom, with that angry look and the tempting and velvety skin wet from the water… Kidd groaned as he felt his immaterial body twist alone with that image. If he was in his mortal body right now he would have a huge aching and embarrassing boner. Again.

Yet the lust and protectiveness didn't explain why he was spending so much time with the human or why he was spoiling him with luxury. Yeah, Kidd needed the boy with him for various reasons, he owed him, Kidd needed to repay his own debt after getting free, but things only looked more and complicated each passing second and it was driving him mad because, the boy had not wanted anything.

That had confused the ancient creature and angered him, it just didn't make sense, everyone wanted or needed something. Kidd had never met anyone who didn't want anything, even now Kidd himself wanted to cover that annoying human with his own body, and silence the roaring fire in his veins after their last very naked meeting. A few times. In different positions. In different places.

However if the boy didn't want anything, it could become a problem. Because it left Kidd in the same situation as before, prisoner, except that now, instead of physically chained to his cage, he was tied to a debt.

Kidd was a trickster, yeah, he could ignore the deal by not telling the human about it and go on with his life. But he was also honourable, an Ifrit, he will not trick him once the boy made his wish. Not this time. He would pay the boy for exactly what the boy had done for him, he deserved that at least after saving Kidd's life.

That's why he couldn't let him go yet, but also what left him powerless and chained to the human. Kidd didn't trust the boy enough to explain the whole debt situation to him and grant him his wish. The boy could ask for everything after what he had done, Kidd's life was in his fucking angry hands who were now breaking things apart in the palace.

He could ask for anything and Kidd will have to do it.

So yeah, not a good idea. He needed to learn about the human more, become his happy magical friend like in a fucking fairy tale, and know if he could be trusted or if Kidd would need to keep qit secret for the rest of the human's life and protect himself.

So interesting and great his new life was looking. Babysitting a stupid human who shouldn't have had any power to begin with.

Kidd expanded in the air in his invisible form, in his non-material form formed of smoke and light, and tried to relax. To breathe. To not break things apart as the immature and annoying human was doing. At the end he would get rid of the debt as he always did, he was a prince, the best among his people, a mere spoiled human would not be able to beat him in negotiations nor cause him harm. Not now when he was finally free.

Kidd has been born as the most stubborn creature of his time and will face this with a cold mind. All he had to do was find out what the boy desired and convince him that he could give it to him.

The room inside the mountain was again silent, the boy seemed to have calmed down and stopped breaking things, or hurt himself with them, or fucking decided to end his pathetic little life and solve Kidd's problem like the drama queen humans were.

One could always hope.

Kidd smiled wryly and approached the room, still invisible to the human eye, to continue watching the puzzling boy who, sadly, was still very alive, and doing what Kidd would have considered impossible.

Apparently Kidd wasn't going to be 'very cold' minded this time either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Djinns have jerarquies, the most powerfulls are the Marid then the the Ifrit or Afrit (Kidd's family), then the Shaitan...but they can also be clasified by colour, being black the most powerful one. In the Coran they are said to be evil spitis that turn to dogs or snakes, and that they were punished by God when they didn't want to bow to humanity (also the reson why they hate us).
> 
> This castle-palace-room was based on Petra, the wonder of Jordania, and the bathroom on the Diwali festival from India. You can search for pictures, they are beautiful. 
> 
> See ya~


	3. Hidden Things

Law closed his eyes and turned his mind into himself -as he had been taught by the elders of his city- attempting to locate his elusive power. Before, it had been difficult for him to reach it, almost impossible, his teachers and tutors always end up frustrated with him, his potential was immense, but Law had never been able to use it. Until now. Now, with the desert around and within him stirring his mind between sandstorms and soft dunes, the missing piece seemed to be locked into place and the power came to Law with just a soft call.

Law felt it through his body, soft as a caress of the wind, and warm as his own blood. Alert and scared. For the first time since he had discovered who he really was, Law thanked the gift God had given him, he marveled at the wild beauty that it possessed, at how alive it made him feel, and at the unlimited potential that he had finally achieved.

The young Sanieri breathed deeply and the world seemed to breathe with him. He stretched his fingers feeling the muscles tense, and the golden sand slipped between them as if Law had ceased to be himself and had become _something_ else.

The new powerful Law smirked evilly.

Raising his hands in the air, right on the edge of the the cliff that was the colonnade of the room, Law explained to the world of sand in front of him exactly what he wanted to do. And the world obeyed. Quickly the huge expand of sand at his feet twisted in the bottom of the cliff, and began to rise, and rise, and rise, like a golden and hot tide answering his call. The ground began to approach, and, suddenly, the distance to the bottom of the cliff didn't seem so high.

When Law finally stepped into the void, a perfect staircase of undulating sand received him, holding him, guiding him, and letting him escape from his stupid prison. But also leaving him face to face with his captor, the Djinn, - His highness: 'The Asshole' with big, capital, shiny letters- who had clearly materialized when he saw what Law was about to do.

'Well, fuck him'

Law was so tempted to spit on him. Perhaps hit him as he has been wishing to do. But finally he just smiled back innocently and enjoyed the anger of the Djinn: his flashing golden eyes, his clenched fists, and the fury that barely let him materialize on this plane of existence.

But really, had the other expected him to be quiet and turn into a slave again just because _his Highness_ , 'The asshole', wanted him to? Had he expected Law to not fight back? After that stupid excuse?

"Return. Inside" the creature _ordered_ with a voice that didn't sound right, but distorted and magnified by a strange echo. The voice of horror stories. The devil at midnight. Law's new annoying friend.

The desert within Law broke out again in a nervous storm despite his thoughts. It still pissed Law to see his own power tremble under the Djinn's simple presence. But still, the sandy staircase under him remained in place, Law apparently having more control over it than he had expected.

Perfect.

Raising a hand in a dismissive neutral gesture, Law gave a new order to the desert under him, it seemed to hesitate at first, fearing that being in front of Law, but Law held firm and finally a handful of sand rose into the air to hit the golden eyes of the genie.

A precise and accurate sweet sweet blow.

The Djinn cursed instantly. Darkly. In a language Law didn't understand but sounded ominous. Then he raised his hands to his momentary blind eyes and got away from Law on instinct, weakened with the low blow. After a few seconds of cursing, insulting and rubbing, the Djinn had dematerialized to solve the problem in the fastest way possible and Law, without wasting any more time in rejoicing, turned the staircase into a ramp and slid down to firm ground.

His heart was beating as fast as it had never done, pure excitement, Law even felt the thrill of the hunt running through his veins: the fear of being caught and the need to regain his freedom. _He had attacked a Djinn_ , and annoying stupid one, but a Djinn, and he was sure that the creature was going to avenge itself in one way or another very quickly.

So he ran. Among the sand, under the scorching sun, without the protection of any turban, boots, or thick clothing, only with the transparent silks he had found in the room barely hiding his legs and a little bag with food and water that won't be enough to last even a week. Law asked the desert to help him, to lower its temperature or make his way through the scorching sand firmer. But he quickly understood that it was stupid. He couldn't ask the desert to ceased to be the desert, the heat and sand were part of it, that would be like asking Law to get rid of his own blood and breath. Both would die.

So he just burned himself while running barefoot, and toasted his shoulders and nose through the powerful sun while he climbed the first dune.

For a moment nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. The desert received him in all its glory, the heat, the silence, the absolute immensity. Dunes and golden sand going on for kilometers in front of him in every direction. Finally free but on the brink of death.

Then came the chaos. As soon as the silence surrounded him, Law felt and saw the Djinn partially materialized by his side, black smoke emerging out from nowhere, shoving him to the ground with a roar, and holding him there not letting him move.

Law instantly felt his naked back burn upon contact with the sand and he hissed weakly, not standing so much pain. He tried to pull his attacker off of him, get up, but the Djinn didn't gave him the slightest chance. He just continued gripping his wrists until they hurt too, and pushing him to the lava hot ground, finally materializing in all his madness and sitting on top him in a humiliating way.

Capturing Law again, not letting him enjoy even two seconds of freedom, as if Law was too valuable to let him out of his sight. As the people from his city had done.

'No, not again' Law summoned the desert refusing to surrender.

The Djinn meanwhile invoked a thin cotton carpet under Law's back making him emit a relieved sigh when he felt his skin stop burning. But it was too late, Law was too pissed and in pain, to desperate to regain his freedom, the desert again attacked the Djinn with a huge sandstorm swooping down on them without mercy.

The Djinn cursed in the unknown dark language again. Faced Law with a frown and focused dark eyes. Smiled as if he had had an idea, and then, in the midst of chaos, amid all the frenzy, the Djinn lowered himself and kissed Law.

It wasn't a passionate and forbidden kiss, as the ones Law had seen among the temple priestesses, something secret and incredibly erotic in that sacred holy place. Nor was it one of those that the great emperors gave to their queens, frivolous and slightly contemptuous but with enough love on them for the populace to hail at it. It was a simple kiss, just a quick brush of lips, a gentle pressure, and a warm sensation on his lips that vanished entirely before Law had decide whether he liked it or not.

It was a surprising kiss, one that left him totally blank and stunned.

The storm around them faded into nothingness. The Djinn loosened his grip and sighed relieved moving to sit more firmly on top him, now with a clear bulge on his pants. Law just stared at him with wide eyes and without understanding what just had happened, what was still happening. Then he opened his mouth to yell at him. Then he went to ask why had he done that. Finally he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water without knowing what to do.

The Djinn above Law smirked, wickedly, but also with a slight air of victory and satisfaction in his eyes.

"You'd better not get used to this, it will not happen again" the redhead assured him contemptuously, his dark and lonely eyes brightening again just for Law.

Law instantly shut his mouth closed, and the sand around him trembled as the brown haired boy finally decided to annihilate this odious being. Cut his dick off. No one had ever made him angry so quickly. He had never hated anyone in his life as he hated this Djinn. His highness seemed to have been born with a special rare gift: to piss Law off.

However, before Law could annihilate him, the creature seemed to understand the murderous message in Law's gaze, and, without the slightest concern, _fucking rolled his eyes_ in that way that made Law's blood boil and turn poisonous.

"Don't be so dramatic, stop attacking me, it was just a kiss".

Law gritted his teeth and the sand trembled around them in a roaring sea.

"It is _not_ about the kiss" he hissed through clenched teeth.

"Then why?" the creature asked, raising an eyebrow in that mocking way "Why escape? Why attack me in such low manner when I have done nothing to hurt you? I can give you _everything_ you want for God's sake, riches, palaces, servants, and I don't believe you don't desire anything. So stop being a little child and making a stupid scene and return to the damn palace, I promise I will take care of you."

_Take care of you._

Law gritted his teeth until they hurt, until the sand bubbled under the rug ready to erupt. Take care of him? Ha! That's what everybody said before they stabbed you on your back. The other's cock was still pressing against his stomach in a clear statement of how the other wanted to 'take care' of him. And was he calling him a child? Well yeah, it was true, the asshole was _old_ compared to him, clearly showing signals of a senile mind and going deeply mad.

"...Oh for god's balls, you really are like a little child aren't you? A spoiled one since you can't even understand what's good for or bad for you. But are you really going to attack me for calling you a child? Are you so immature?" said the Djinn seriously, almost with surprise.

"Go. Die" Law finally said, this time pushing the creature hard enough to get off of him and rising from the ground ready to escape again. This time he would plan it better. This time he would not throw sand into the other's eyes, this time he will separate his red head from his bare strong shoulders.

He didn't needed protection. He didn't need a palace. He didn't need the Djinn. He wanted freedom!

"Really why are you so eager to leave?" asked the Djinn lying down where Law had pushed him, still not caring to hide his erection, but on the air above the ground, floating easily like a magical king in his palace without touching the hot sand "Is there someone waiting for you? Family? A wife?... A lover?"

Law ignored him and his suddenly low dangerous voice and just kept walking. He ignored his back and feet covered with burns. He ignored the provocations of the other. He ignored everything. He needed to calm down, needed to escape and needed the freedom to feel safe again. And he needed to entertain the other while he think and planned the next attack, the one that will kill the monster.

"I'm not going back into a cage" he announced from afar humoring him with the reality while he kept climbing the huge dune. Because it was true that he preferred death over being a prisoner again in a golden jail, as he had been in all his life, being used, taken advantage, of and humiliated.

"Cage? What cage?" asked the creature with confusion and mock in his voice, but Law also hear the curiosity in his voice, the strange alertness, and understanding. "Why not?"

Law snorted, his feet tripped, and he falled into the dune rolling down a hill to where the Djinn was still lying down above the ground, totally unscratched and watching him entertained. The human breathed covered in sand. The dune top as far away as moments ago. His mind still blank from any attack plans. _And the Djinn still smiling._

Law lost his shit. Heat, pain, impotence, hatred and frustration all mingled together within him and burst into an uncontrollable new and ugly emotion.

"Because I'll not be caged and used again! Much less by someone like you" He shouted with hate, turning to face the Djinn with crazed eyes.

The desert erupted around him, rippled dunes, rising and falling as if in a sea of sand that collided against the rocks. The Djinn just stared at him for a moment, long and intense, now also deeply pissed but disturbingly calm. Like a deadly predator. Watching Law panting and about to collapse on the burning sand again while the sand moved and moved around them.

_It was too much._

"I see" the Djinn said as if he had finally understood the meaning of the universe. As if with that simple words all could be solved, as if he could fix all Law's problems.

Blind rage flooded the dark haired boy. The other's voice had sounded full of pity, full of a protective and overconfident tone that Law despised. He was not weak, he didn't need any protection, he wasn't obeying this man. So Law raised from the ground and advanced towards the Djinn ready to hit him, to destroy him, to turn him into the absolute nothingness and show him how much _protection_ Law needed.

The Djinn read his intentions and for a moment he looked surprised or even confused by why Law would be angry, but finally he stood up with an elegant and fluid movement, planting his boots on the sand, also readying himself to meet Law. The boy didn't even hesitate this time, he just threw the punch right into the annoying face aiming for the nose. The Djinn dodged it without trouble, and instead he grabbed Law's arm and waist to turn with him as if they were dancing.

The world vanished in a whirl of black smoke.

"You can not survive in this desert without me little one" whispered a voice hoarsely into Law's ear. "You don't have water, you have no food, not even shoes to protect your feet. You'll die in a few hours"

"I don't care!" Law shouted furiously to the smoke as he struggled to get free. Fearfully. Desperately. He wasn't weak, not anymore, he won't be chained.

It was then when world began to spin around him, faster and faster, while the darkness grew covering him completely until he was blinded by it. Until Law was run out of air too. And still he couldn't get out of the grip of a Djinn who was no longer there, who had turned into the painful smoke that was asphyxiating him. Everything was too world and laws of nature were not making sense. His body ached too. Way too hot. Way too dangerous.

"You desire freedom, don't you?. You were a prisoner and now you will fight for it. But tell me little mortal, would you abandon everything for it? Everything you desired? Everything I can give you?" asked again the voice of the Djinn, so close, so hot and hypnotic. But Law was losing the feeling of his body, his vision in the darkness, his touch in the heat.

"Fuck you. I don't want your riches or tricks! I don't need them! I don't need you!" Law answered to the darkness, to the chaos around him, above the noise, above absolute nothingness.

The voice laughed around him.

"Stupid. So you will die?. You will lose your last breathe, everything you are, to just be free, free and completely alone?"

"Yes! I won't live a life that's not mine! Not again! I prefer death over a life so empty" the last years in the city had been madness, cruel, horrible, dead had been a good temptation, now, cage again, it was a perfect promise.

Law had no regrets.

Again the laughter filled the silence. Coming out of nowhere, coming from the smoke, coming from within Law itself, the heat, his mind. Macabre, dark, lonely, sarcastic, strangely like Law's one. Broken, and powerful after so much suffering.

"Idiot" the voice whispered with a small, dark pleasure "Life won't be empty anymore, you have me now, don't throw away your life so easily"

...oOo...

When Law woke again, he knew instantly that he was still in the middle of the desert even before he openened his eyes. Something told him he was home, something told him he was safe, protected from the world by kilometers and kilometers of white sand. He had never had this feeling.

Law opened his eyes. They were again in the reddish mountains where Law had spent the previous night, in the comfortable, yet restricting, palace created by a legendary being. Law remembered breaking this room in an attack of rage, he remembered destroying everything until the room lost all it beauty and grace. But now everything looked repaired and exactly as it has been that morning.

As if nothing had happened.

Sitting between blankets of the huge bed, Law observed the familiar surroundings that seemed to have came out from the purest imagination. The white curtains on the colonnade protected him from the sun of the afternoon, showered the room with light and curled with the pleasant wind creating an eerie atmosphere. Again there were trays of food around him, again there was the huge pool of clear water and jasmine petals waiting for him in the other room, and the red carpet covering the floor and protecting him from harming his burned feet.

All stunning, all marvelous and full of luxury.

This time, however, instead of the watching Djinn with red hair and an impressive psyke, a huge black cat was sitting by the colonnade staring into the distance with alert ears and a slightly curled back. Law for a moment wanted to hit him and puss him over the edge of the cliff, to strange it again and continue their fight, but the anger had died down he was just too tired now and the conversation with the Djinn still was replaying itself in his mind making him think over his situation.

Law shrugged. He could always try later. When he regained his strength and murderous instinct. When the Djinn opened his mouth.

So he got up from the bed. The cat didn't even look at him when he ate hungrily from the tray of food, or when he stripped naked to enter the scented pool. It wasn't until Law felt the cold water soaking the wounds on his back making him emit a low pained moan, that the big cat turned to face him with captivating golden eyes.

_Dark. His eyes were so dark now, the gold almost disappearing within the depths of his irises._

"You're wounded" said the creature with a dark and powerful voice that did not quite fit with its innocent appearance. A known voice. The Djinn's voice.

"And whose fault is that?!" Law asked ignoring the uneasiness inside him and still pissed for what had happened. Fainting like a court lady was so humiliating. However he finally managed to sunk into the water with a groan of pain and clenched teeth, it hurt, but at least the cold water would help calm and clean the burns.

"It was definitely yours" Replied instantly the creature, approaching Law on silent paws as the human frowned and splashed cold water over the animal.

The Djinn however transformed into his human form -the dark clothes and dangerous sword, the powerful muscles and the unruly red hair- easily dodging the water. Then taking a wet and scented towel next to the perfume bottles, he got himself into the water, and he began rubbing Law's face and neck with it as if Law was a child that needed help to take a bath. And he did it with an unnatural delicacy and care for someone with his looks, silently helping get rid of the desert sand and caring for the wounds on his back.

Law said and did nothing to prevent it as the situation had just turned too weird for his mind to process. Was the Djinn cleaning him? Why?

Clearly, he still remained prisoner of the other, he just couldn't escape from him or kill him. But now, with a clear mind not filled with rage for his lost freedom, the nature of his new imprisonment was starting to confuse him. The Djinn, unlike the people from the city, seemed to give him everything he might need: food, water, a home... he had told him he would be granted any wish he desired, that he would be protected and taken care of.

Even now, Law felt a strange delicacy in the other's gestures, in the way he asked him to move one way or another to reach a difficult area, in his deep concentration, or even in his suddenly lonely and hurted eyes that prevented Law to ask anything now to make him stop. This was the relationship a servant had with his master instead of a jailer with his prisoner, Law could even see a slight satisfaction and necessity in the eyes of the creature, as if deep down he also needed the contact and the unconventional relationship, as if he didn't want Law to go and be alone again.

Maybe this wasn't like it looked like.

 _'You've released me'_ Law recalled the words that the creature had said to him that first time when he had awakened in the palace, and for a moment, these took on a new meaning.

What if the creature had also been a prisoner? Law seriously doubted it. The redhead looked more powerful and older than the world itself. But what if he was mistaken? What if the other had spent years under other people's command? Law's prison had been a kind one, a prison nonetheless, but they had taken care of him. They hadn't hurt him, Law has not been tortured or starved to death as punishment. As he had seen some lords do. But what about the Djinn? What if his jailers had been _crueler?_

For a moment Law felt a slight empathy and connection with the Djinn, a strange need to protect him as the Djinn was protecting him, for a moment he seemed to understand him and his motives. Both of them could really be equals, the two sides of the same coin, imprisoned, forced to live a life that both loathed, and free at last without really knowing what to do.

Law knew he would try to escape again, there was no other option and the other had to understand it, but with this new possibility and the wounds on his feet and back, he decided to wait a little longer for now. He decided to learn and understand the other creature, know if his theory was true, because if it was, the other could be the only creature that resembled him the most in this world.

When Law was clean from sand, sweat, and blood, the Djinn helped him get out of the huge bathtub, clearly struggling to ignore Law's nakedness. Then he changed his own wet clothes in a swirl of smoke and then proceed to help Law dry of with the towels of white linen, and dress with the strangers pants, turbans and jewels the Djinn chose himself. Law still didn't like them, those garments hid less than they revealed, and the curves and angles suggested by the gold necklaces on his chest where those of the courtesans ready to please. They were somewhat excessive from Law's point of view, obscene even, but still, by the look the creature gave him once he was wearing them, he might not look so bad.

Law contained a smirk when the other just finished dressing him and stared at him for a good five minutes without being able to move, just gaping and devouring every naked curve of his body with hungry eyes.

Law recalled what the Djinn had said after their pathetic kiss _"It will not happen again"_ and wanted to laugh. Ha! He was so gonna use this against him. He was so going to get his revenge over this little arrogant shit.

The Djinn, however, seemed to have a firm grip on his emotions and desires today, and at the end he just blinked when Law teased him and said nothing. He instead made Law sit down on the bed next to him, and grabbed a glass filled with a strange substance from a bedside table to tend to his wounds.

Law heard the tinkling glass as the other opened it at his back, and soon the smell of mint flood the air before he felt the Djinn's great and reassuring hands over the tender skin of his wounds expressing the substance. Law then waited for the sting, the pain that those things usually caused, but the only thing that happened was that relief flooded him in waved when the discomfort disappear. Incredible, magical, but deep down it was to be expected from a Djinn.

Law closed his eyes during the slow massage, and let the other to treat his wounds with those slow and precise movements that were clearly trying to lengthen the time and contact. The other's fingers were running down his back following his spine, lowering more and more until he ran them dangerously close to his waistband. Law felt his pulse quicken when he understood the other's desires, too clearly, as he felt those fingers pressed lightly in over the beginning of his ass, over the border line of his pants. However, before Law could say anything, the redhead climbed back up his back, spreading the balm on other areas. Law gasped not aware that he has been holding his breath. The light massage felt good, dangerous, relaxing, and being appreciated for the first time for who he was, rather than _what_ he was, was starting to felt intoxicating.

At least until a shiver ran down Law's body. Until the Djinn's movements suddenly stopped. Law turned his head slightly to look at the other as he felt the enormous creature's hand still over his ribs.

The Djinn was frowning as he looked into the distance through the balconade as he had been doing when Law had awakened. His body was again tense, his attention elsewhere. His eyes a deep black tone, dangerous, not human.

Law refused to follow his golden gaze with a incomprehensible hunch.

"Djinn" Law called him in a whisper, feeling slightly uneasy by this change, by the sudden silence, by the eyes of the redhead. But the other continued ignoring him, just looking with focused eyes among the dunes, only frowning more and more, like reading himself to attack.

"Djinn!" Law called again, louder this time.

And finally he turned to face him. Snapping his attention back to Law. Still scowling, tense, and with that wild scaring look, the playful and relaxing air totally gone. The desert fidgeted inside Law, awakening under the dangerous look that the creature suddenly had.

"Kidd" He then told Law who was still looking at him askance.

This time it was Law's turn to frown uncomprehending.

"What?"

"My name is Kidd, Eustass Kidd, I don't call you human"

Law nodded slowly, refusing to smile, relaxing for a moment when he heard the other talk, sounding like normal, arguing again. Nonetheless, something inside him was still shaking, the hunch, something that told him that something wasn't right.

"Kidd" Law probed again breaking the eerie silence, savoring the name in his mouth, still without turning around to completely face the other, still feeling the hands on his body like a shield against the world.

When had he allowed the other to protect him?

However the redhead's eyes also seemed to change with that single word, with that simple name. Again the beautiful brightness returned to his eyes, that look of hunger, while Law felt the strong fingers press on Law's skin in an almost possessive way. For a second the redhead seemed to lean closer, his hand over Law's chest holding him firmly in place, his scent surrounding him and the magic and danger clouding his mind.

Law held his breath for the second time, waiting for something he did not understand, opening his mouth slightly while the other kept getting closer, while the golden eyes seemed to devour him slowly.

But suddenly, the Djinn's look changed again, the darkness filled his eyes again, not as dark as when he had been looking to the desert, but losing that pretty shine Law was starting to appreciate. He stopped mere millimeters from Law's mouth as if waking from a trance and frowning at what he had been doing.

"... I want to make a new deal with you" said the redhead as his gaze strayed back again to the immensity of white sand, as if nothing had been about to happen. Distracted again but without the dangerous edge as before.

Law tightened his lips and turned his head back to look in front of him. He was disappointed and worried for some reason and that only confused him. The last words of the Djinn in their fight before he had fainted had confused him, _'You have me now'._ It sounded fake, cheesy even, yet something strange had been planted in him and was growing with each new caress and kind word from the Djinn.

It wasn't good.

Law had to admit that the Djinn was incredibly attractive, physically imposing, fiery red hair and eyes that seemed to hypnotize him every time he looked into them, and if that was not enough, the dangerous and vulnerable aura that he sometimes had, were only complicated things further and making him act weirder, tamed, docile. Law didn't know what he was feeling, and he didn't want to analyze it, he just knew it was wrong. The Djinn was still his jailer, his enemy, someone from another species, and that alone, should be enough to make the decision. The rest was irrelevant.

Law blamed his fatigued mind for this moment of confusion. A lot of things had happened in the last two days, and his mind was not assimilating it all. He needed time, he needed to think.

"What?" Law asked however surrendering to the other's silent question, tensing and feeling his heart race in an annoying way.

"I'm going to release you and grant you a wish" the Djinn said at his back, drawing small circles with his thumb on Law's ribs inadvertently, but making Law's mind focus entirely on that place "But in return, I want you to come with me to a place"

Law gulped for a moment perfectly knowing the place the other wanted to go.

"Where?"

"There"

Law turned again slightly, to observe where the Djinn was pointing with a strong arm: through the curtains, to the remoteness of the desert. The place where Law didn't dare to look too. To the place from where an uneasy feeling came.

Law doubted. _Something wasn't right!_. The Djinn seemed obsessed, entranced with the place and since he had awakened something was so very wrong. Law realized now that the desert within him had remained calm, peaceful despite the proximity and touch of the Djinn, as if not paying him any attention. Law now understood why. It wasn't that the desert had not paid attention to the Djinn, it had not paid attention to him because something much more dangerous and frightening had caught it. Law did not know what it was, but something told him he did not want to find out either.

"What if I refuse?" Law asked already knowing the answer he would receive. He could almost feel the eyes of the creature digging into his back with his fingers on his skin.

"Then I will not liberate you and you will be my prisoner forever"

Something dark and agreeable twisted in Law's stomach with those words. Law ignored it. This was not an option. He had barely met this being the night before and he had already fought and had insulted him as he had never done with anyone. A single whole week with him could shorten his lifespan dramatically.

"All right" he said at last, resigned, hiding his concern and everything he was feeling.

The Djinn nodded behind him satisfied. Then he took his hand from his ribs to encircle his waist and drew him against his body. Law said nothing, he refused to recognize the panic in his body and the acceleration of his pulse while the Djinn sat him on his lap, careful not to touch much Law's sensitive back. Law didn't even deign to look at him as the Djinn took his hand and brought it to his mouth gently, to deposit a soft and long kiss on the back of it.

"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this sacred covenant; and to safeguard, protect and defend my bargainer until he deems it completed. Shall my honour be taken away and my life ripped if I dare betray him. Shall my soul rot in darkness and my name be cursed for eternity if I betray this oath."

Law suppressed a shudder at what words and contained a surprising wave of heat and arousement at something much more intimate than the kiss the Djinn had been about to give him, something forbidden and secret between them two.

Law simply remained silent as the Djinn again transformed into the black cat and disappeared from the room as if nothing had happened. While the desert in Law panicked. While something in the tissue of the world changed itself with what they had done.

...oOo...

_One left._

In the old abandoned temple in the middle of the desert, everything seemed to be as it had been for thousand years. The wind was still dry and cutting, destroying the rudimentary wall paintings, and the old standing stones built millennia ago in veneration of gods of the first civilizations had been breaking over the years, crumbling under sandstorms and the hot sun, leaving the place raw and nude, when the temple had been covered by sand thousand times to emerged from it again.

Always surviving the inferno of fire and light. Until it had almost become the desert's own bones.

This place was a place that the world had chosen to forget. Not even animals passed by on their migrations. No maps existed from that area. The plants didn't grow. The clouds didn't released their little rain. The light seemed to swerve and lose color leaving everything there covered in eerie gray tones.

This was a cursed place, a place that the world had refused to recognize as its own.

For good reason.

A _Something_ lived in that temple that had been created with the world itself, a Something that had long existed before the three races had walked and changed the world by pleasure. Because as there is light there is also shadow. Just as there is heaven, hell exists. As well as there is God and good, there is also the Devil and evil.

And that hidden _Something_ at the end of the world represented all those things at once. _Dark, evil, the devil, death, nothingness, pain, suffering._ It was a _Something_ so terrible, so destructive, and macabre, that when the world had emerged it had been put to sleep to protect it.

So it had been for centuries, locked in the temple since the first generations. Imprisoned by the three races. Sleeping in an eternal dream, never to be awakened.

But the first civilizations were gone. The famous temple had been abandoned. The legend forgotten. Rituals corrupted.

The war between the Djinn had begun just a few millennia later, altering the landscape of the world itself, causing earthquakes, creating new deserts, and reaching the most remote places in the world.

The _Something_ had then woken from its slumber. And it's hunger and hatred had been ravenous. The first ones to suffer them were the Djinn the ones who had awakened it. They had been the most powerful of the three ones, the ones who had dominated the world at the time. The _Something_ had devoured them one by one. Patiently, quietly, and almost lovingly. Annihilating an entire race as it had never been seen, without leaving the slightest trace of them in its path, without letting them escape anywhere in a chase that ran through the fabric of reality itself. Until there had not been anyone left. Until its voracious hunger had been sated for the moment.

The _Something_ had then returned to the doomed temple without color, where the wind was gray and the dark stones murmured old chants, to sleep again. To digest its food before it started a new hunt.

But it had been awakened again.

The fabric of the world had been altered, a new connection had emerged, there was a new line of light in the darkness that now covered the world.

_One left._

And not just any. The best of them all, the largest and most succulent morsel, a prince among his kind, someone who was quite similar to the _Something_ , who had been locked up too, who had been hated and now finally released.

From the strong chamber in the depths of the temple, in the depths of the desert, in the deepest part of the world, a shapeless black liquid began to drip from the walls. Drop, after drop, after drop. Absorbing the dim gray light of the place. Making the shadows grow. Obliterating the sounds until only one thing could be heard.

_Plip-plip-plip._

The air of the place flooded with an unpleasant smell of blood and putrefaction. The smell of an entire race decomposing. Black blood of an entire species dripped from the walls with a slow and silent patience.

The drops fell and slid down the stones at will. They came together in a small puddle on the floor in the middle of the chamber. A puddle that grew and grew without reflecting the light, without reflecting anything. An amorphous puddle that was growing and growing until everything inside the temple disappeared into the darkness.

_Plip-plip-plip._

_One left._

And this time it was hungrier than ever.


	4. Hidden Curses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here it's the forth chapter, you can see the work done from my artist in my tumblr page, thanks for reading and commenting.

Kidd closed his eyes to the physical world and opened his eyes to that other one that humans couldn't see, to the other dimension where physical things had no place. Here things looked different, simpler but more complex, beautiful but lacking colors and sharpness. This was a place that involved feeling and magic, spirits and more sacred things, this was the place where his race has been born.

Yet, Something wasn't well there either.

Kidd felt watched here in the sacred land, his own instincts telling him that something was hunting him, and still, no matter how much he focused runned, no matter how much he crossed the various planes of existence -from the first to the seventh, through the various veil dimensions, from the most simple to the most difficult one that only the most powerful Djinn could see into- nothing seemed out of place.

Kidd doubted then, still remembered the panicking and immense feeling, and how his instinct had shouted at him only a few hours before that he was in danger. _In a very big deadly danger._

The Djinn had learned long ago to always trust his instinct, it had always been right and it had saved his life more than once. Yet, since he had been released his instinct had told him that something was missing, lacking, like a reaction from the world, a welcoming committee or even a crowd ready to annihilate him. Kidd had searched the planes then too, but he had also found nothing. So at first Kidd had ignored it, considered it stupid, arrogant even for himself, and had focused on other more annoying problems at the time. Like the tempting human.

However, the displeasing sensation had done nothing but increased hour after hour. Until Kidd had felt at the verge of a mental collapse moments ago and had needed to left the physical plane to seek the cause of his distress. And still he couldn't find anything. As much as he searched in the world through the different dimensions, and into _that_ distant place from which came the deadly feeling, he still couldn't see anything. Only darkness and unease. No matter how much he focuses or how much power he used to focus on it.

It could only be a bad sign. It was driving him crazy.

Kidd returned to his physical body, disappointed and restless. For a moment he felt his enormous spirit and energy concentrate to the impossible in the body of the small black cat that he had decided to become this time. The human by his side had finally fallen asleep in the bed after this emotional tiring day, and Kidd had not hesitated to join him between the sheets to refuge from the cold night.

Now however, that furry little body he had chosen, purred without Kidd knowing how to stop it, while in the meantime the boy kept hugging him in his dreams and sinking his fingers into Kidd's soft black fur.

The purring increased.

Kidd closed his eyes thinking about transforming into something else that wasn't so irritating and troublesome as a cat. Maybe something with spines or sharp needles, like a hedgehog. But as much as he wanted to feel pissed and hide his reactions, the Djinn knew that he will never be able to hurt the human, not this one.

He was like a life-saver for Kidd.

Something happened when he was near this man. Kidd could almost feel it now, his small body relaxing under the fingers of the other, and the anguish and fear fading away in a sea of pure pace. Before, when the sense of panic had been almost about to consume him, Kidd had almost kissed the boy to pacify the horrible feeling and absorb the calm that the boy transmitted. Indeed, if it hadn't been for the sudden massage and bath where he had been able to touch the soft, warm skin of the tanned man, Kidd didn't know what he would have done.

Thank God he had regained consciousness in the last moment, and had saved himself from the worst and most shaming scene of his life.

Because Kidd felt that kissing the boy so he himself could calm down, wasn't right. When they had been about to kiss the little human boy had looked... innocent, helpless, as if what they were doing was new to him, as if he didn't understood what was happening between them.

Kidd had simply not been able do it that way. Which only confused him even more.

Kidd didn't understand it. This new and innocent side of the boy didn't match the idea Kidd had had from him, the boy simply looked more mature than he actually was, he shouldn't be older than a quarter of a century, too young for Kidd's millennials, and yet, it hadn't been for the kiss, Kidd would never have realized his tender age.

The boy looked, talked and acted older. He clearly had gone through a lot in this life to end this way. Kidd still remembered his reaction to being imprisoned, his attack or his furry how he had fighted for his freedom, just like Kidd himself had done. Other people would have just shrink in a corner and cry for his fate, but no, not this boy, he was too strong and proud for that. He had been hurt before and had sharpened his claws.

Kidd frowned and growled low. He didn't know why but just to imagine the man getting wounded, other's abusing him and making him kneel, made him angry. Angry when he should be happy. He hated the boy, he was not feeling pity or protectiveness over him. _Definitely not._

Something unexplainable was definitely happening, he had never had so much concern over a human or tried to understand one, he had only used or obeyed them when making the deals. Even when he had been free and had taken them as lovers he hadn't had such an erratic behavior with anyone. He had never helped anyone to bathe, he had never built homes and palaces to protect the people he made the deals with.

He had never stopped his lust for a virgin, no, he had just shown them the only one and best night of their pathetic lives. And he wasn't being arrogant this time, in some old cities he had been considered the god of sex.

Yet Kidd began to wonder if his imprisonment hadn't only changed his desire for revenge. At first, he had thought that the attraction he felt for the young human was simply the result of spending millennia locked up without talking to another person, without touching or seeing anyone, but now he was beginning to doubt it.

The Djinn seemed to be wasting his power on the boy without hesitation and without asking for anything in return. Kidd could had taken advantage of the situation, he could have forced the boy to beg for water when he had been thirsty, or for food when had been hungry, or shoes, or a roof, or a bed, he could have done thousand bargains with him, indebt him up to his bones and make him his slave, _but he had not_.

Kidd was still wondering why. The boy did not seem to have anything special to cause that reaction in him, he was attractive, intelligent, but Kidd had met many people like that during his long life. People with a much better character who hadn't tried to kill him two hours after meeting him.

The Djinn sighed frustrated.

The cool night breeze entered the room and the boy muttered in dreams snuggling closer to Kidd, protecting himself from the cold and searching for the heat of Kidd's small body. A nice and warm feeling that Kidd had never experienced before spread across his chest and made the cat purr stronger.

Kidd closed his eyes upset, and forced his mind to stop thinking about how well the skin of the boy looked through the transparent clothes he was still wearing. How good that soft tanned skin had felt under his fingers in the bath, trembling but confident, at his mercy, but at the same time having a strange hypnotic control over Kidd's senses.

Instead Kidd erased from his mind the kiss they had almost shared, erased the face of wonder and hope the boy has had and the protective instinct that had arisen in him accordingly. Kidd suppressed everything and just focused on resting, sleeping, surviving another day in this new and different world.

...oOo...

The next day they started the trip without delay. The boy had rested and was clearly recovered and in a more 'tolerant-and-happier-but-still-glaring' mood than the first day they had spent together. The burns had disappeared from his back and feet thanks to the care of the Djinn, leaving the soft, brown skin without the slightest mark. Kidd had made completely sure of it with his own insistent and eager hands, he wasn't touching the boy because he wanted, he was just making sure he was alright to start the trip.

Then Kidd had packed up a tent and all their belongings with a snap of his fingers, produced two camels out of thin air, packed them with the things, and finally they had been ready to leave and travel.

The boy had then wondered why they didn't use their magic to reach the place instantly, and the truth was that the idea was as good as any other, but Kidd for some reason didn't want to use his magic more than necessary, not in such huge amounts. Something told him it was better to leave no trace visible in the world right now, and transporting two people with so much power as themselves, a Djinn prince and a human who could command the desert, from one place to another, would definitely do that.

Both had to disappear on all the planes for a while.

So he had preferred the traditional method of the slow but trusty camels, and, without wasting more time, they had covered themselves with heavy dark turbans, and had climbed up the camels.

And then the second day of torture for Kidd had begun.

After millennia living in his true form -as energy and pure fire- Kidd had forgotten the problems that the material life presented. Kidd was more than uncomfortable, he was fucking _melting into a puddle_ because of the heat, and the constant thirst that didn't seem to get quenched no matter how much he drank was driving him beyond mad. Yet he knew that if he ever got rid of his clothes to calm the heat, the desert would burn his pale thin skin; and if drank too much water in a short period of time he would end up sick. Stupid useless desert, at this rate his tortured spirit would be unable to maintain this form much longer.

Kidd had thought of changing his appearance into that of another animal, a scorpion or one of the desert foxes, or even lizards who loved to sunbathe and frolic on the rocks. Something simpler than a human being. Kidd even thought about becoming someone else who tolerated the heat better.

The Djinn always chose the human appearance of a legendary and powerful warrior who had lived a long time ago in a place covered in snow. When he had met him, Kidd had seen how other humans responded to that appearance, men with respect and a slight envy, and women fighting one another to get into his bed. Kidd had seen a new form of manipulation and an advantage for himself in that look, so he had stolen it easily.

But now, in the evil desert the decision didn't seem to be the best, his skin was to pale, his eyes weak, his metabolism made for more gentle climates. Maybe he should become one of the men of the sun tribes, those living at the edge of the moor and who had skin as black as the night.

But that required to use magic, and Kidd still refused to do it, and besides, if he changed his appearance his only entertainment amid the torture would probably disappear too.

Because a strange tension seemed to have emerged between him and the boy and it was only amusing Kidd. It was not an unpleasant kind of tension riddled with hatred and the desire to kill the other -apparently they have finally get over that one- no, this was another kind of tension, one of sneaking glances and silences fraught with a deeper meaning. After what had happened yesterday, something had changed between them, the boy had let Kidd touch him, and he had not backed away when Kidd had almost kissed him, it was clear that the boy was attracted to this warrior's appearance.

Which was only increasing Kidd's ego and, of course, his already abundant discomfort.

Kidd had endured several kilometers with an erection between his legs. One he just couldn't avoid having. The Djinn could practically feel the boy's eyes fixed on his back, traveling over the muscles that the tight tunic outlined and studying his arms covered with protective leather straps and hidden knives. Kidd had sense it lowering down his legs too, over the tight pants that rode low on his hips and into the powerful leather boots he was wearing. It had been as an intimate caress from lover, making his skin crawl with need, stirring him up in seconds as if Kidd had been nothing but a mere virgin receiving his first appreciative glance.

At first Kidd had enjoyed it, it had almost been pleasant. But after a few hours the intense silence, the tension, and the obvious hungry eyes that seemed to caress his very soul, had excited Kidd more than they should. Now Kidd almost had to stifle a pathetic whine when their camels ended up parallel again over a dune and the boy's gaze dropped to the swollen cock tenting his pants. And stared, and stared, and stared. With a disbelieving and annoying look of surprise, as if he didn't understand where _that_ had came from.

_Fuck him. This was his fault!_

The young man finally raised his eyes to Kidd's face with alarm, almost with panic in his eyes, but Kidd stared back at him unblinkingly. For a moment he let the boy understand that Kidd knew what he had been doing for the whole trip, what he had been thinking, and he made Law see what was going through Kidd's own mind in consequence.

The boy blinked almost blushing. Then he quickly looked away with a gasp and a frown appearing on his face. He looked slightly out of breathe

And Kidd realized he had had enough of the game.

With a groan of frustration and anger, Kidd ignored his own warnings and dematerialized from this world with his magic, to reappear in the air in front of the human riding his own camel. The younger opened his eyes in surprise and fear crossed his eyes momentarily, but Kidd ignored it all, his cock was too hard to keep up with the stupid coy game and not do anything about it.

This time the boy had been the one who had started it.

Raising a hand, Kidd grabbed the neck of the boy with force and did what he had been secretly wanting to do since the first time he had seen the man in front of him: He kissed him.

This kiss didn't resemble their previous kiss during the fight, the pathetic brush of lips that could even be considered an accident, nor was it like the attempt in the bath, full of meaning and delicacy. This time it was a more cruder kiss, one a lover devotes to another, hungry and lustful, full of passion, desire and a light anger.

Kidd didn't even allow the dark haired boy to react to it and he only took what he considered his. Mercilessly the Djinn bit the surprised and parted lips of the other until Law opened his mouth even more, and Kidd pushed into where he needed to be. With no more doubt, without holding back any longer, the redhead tilted the other's head in the perfect angle and devoured his mouth as he pleased.

The boy gasped with surprise when their tongues met heatley, when Kidd kissed him in the wildest way possible, teaching him something that, for millennia, every lover had needed to learn and master. Kidd tasted him with hunger, stealing his breath and his mind, and making Law's whole body react to the sudden attack as in instinct, blood pumping hot in his veins under Kidd's desperation for this simple and intimate contact.

When both separated for an instant, the smallest moment, Kidd didn't even let him catch his breath before sinking back into his mouth with a groan of victory and contempt.

Law raised his arms to the Djinn's neck then, needing to hold onto something between the whirlwind of new sensations, between the soft texture of the other's lips over his. Law tried to answer him, he just tried to survive the brutal and possessive attack, and arched over the saddle of the camel to raise his body closer to Kidd.

And Kidd held him without letting him fall, both in the air, both in the middle of nowhere.

Not stopping kissing him, not stopping holding him, Kidd let his true form expand on this plane and at this moment. Just for this addictive and tempting human. A thick black smoke surrounded the dark haired boy, Kidd's revenge for the last hours began.

Thousand of invisible hands caressed the boy with eagerness. First slipping under his clothes between the folds and openings, parting his tunics, gaining more access for the strange smoke to caressed his skin with cold twists. Then the smoke transformed into mouths that started licking his arched back, his parted thighs; who finally found his nipples and bited at them with a dark intent until the human moaned in a mix of pleasure and pain, Kidd feeling them grow tight under his ministration.

Finally the strange intelligent hands, now caressing him under his own clothes, opened his long legs even more over the saddle, preparing him for what was to come, holding him in place with a desperate need in them. The smoke keep touching and licking every centimeter of brown skin, leaving nothing untested, trying to memorize every centimeter of the boy's while Kidd _keep kissing him in that wild way_.

The human then realized the nature of the assault, he seemed he regain his mind for a second and looked slightly frightened, doubting. But Kidd refused to stop, not now, not when he had fallen hopelessly, when he couldn't deny it anymore, when he hadn't been fucking able to _contain himself_. The Djinn deepened the kiss even further, licking the other into his mouth, and forcing the human to forget everything, to forget it all. Wisps of black smoke squeezed the boy's butt cheeks, the perfect size for his hands, with a newfound possessiveness, and separated them leaving room for the smoke to finally lick that hidden delicious place in the boy.

_To prepare him for being claimed. His. Forever._

The boy trembled at the first lick in an almost whimpering way, as if he needed that to with the same desperation as Kidd. The other was no longer being able to control his own reactions, he keep moaning louder against his mouth, grabbing at him with trembling hands and shaking beautifully. Kidd delighted in it, he held him firmly with the hands of black smoke grabbing him from behind, observing him, loving how he had been able to put the boy in such a state.

Law's erection was visible between the layers of the blue, baggy trousers he wore. A promise hidden under the clothing, tempting him as everything in the other managed to temp Kidd. Kidd released without hesitation with the help of his smoke and, instantly, more hands were stroking, licking, and pumping it with intense strokes, making the boy wilder, making his moans grow in volume.

Finally, the boy broke the kiss with a muffled cry, totally immobilized by everything that surrounded him, totally aroused and covered with the smoke. Kidd opened his eyes to the world too, to appreciate his masterpiece, to memorize this moment and what he had done.

But the image that received him was so much more than he expected. The boy seemed to have melt between in his arms. His eyes were clouded, begging Kidd to fuck him with the lust they have in them, his pulse was beating too fast making his skin flush with a beautiful color, his body was completely covered by thousand hands from where Kidd could feel absolutely everything, every curve, every trembling gasp, his mouth ajar asking for more, his beautiful cock trapped and hard, asking for attention...

 _Too perfect_. Kidd lost the control over his own magic for the first time in his whole existence.

With a disbelieving groan Law fell back on the saddle of a frightened camel while Kidd disappeared from this world.

...oOo...

Again, Law embed the stick that were supposed to hold the tent into the sand, with a hard movement. The small post bowed slightly between the fluid sand, but finally, with an order from Law, the desert grabbed it, holding the thing straight in place.

Law frowned silently at his own inability to survive in this place. Simply mounting the small tent had taken him a whole hour, and he had almost skipped the small oasis where he was now as he had been too distracted by his own thoughts.

But his pride and a monumental anger prevented him from calling the missing Djinn to help him.

Cursing internally he began to light a fire to make a brief meal of dried meat and a tea too spicy for his liking, while the desert itself seemed charged with electricity from his rage. He was furious, and rightfully so, because after the "accident" from this morning the Djinn had disappeared, leaving him alone for the rest of the day. Law hoped he never returned. Law hoped he suffered a very slow and painful death.

What had happened this morning had been just too... No, Law refused to even think about it, he didn't even fully understand what had happened or how he could have reacted that way.

With a small knife he had found among the little luggage the camels carried, Law began to chop the meat into unequal parts and throwed them in the pot of boiling water along with the dates, olives and a handful of spices that he had found among the bales. The mixture didn't smell exactly edible, but that was unimportant, Law needed to cut and watch things burn now.

It was then, in the middle of the night, after hours of a solitary and silent trip, that Kidd returned to the world. This time taking the appearance of a little boy with huge golden eyes, fair skin and furious red tousled hair, as if he had turned into a younger version of the known warrior, but a version more poorer and lean and dirty. The Djinn seemed to prefer a color pattern, but his tasted were still pretty weird, why would he want to turn into a dirty helpless child?.

Law however wasn't fooled by the trick, he was still the Djinn, and after what had happened that morning, the knife in his hands seemed just perfect to throw into his bored face.

But the attack didn't really seem necessary this time, the child looked at Law, pissed and with a knife, then looked at the small fire cooking pot with food for just one person, and then at the tiny tent also for a single person. The message was clear as water. The Djinn frowned, looking suddenly pissed too, but said nothing to the rejection. Instead he continued to observe the small oasis with a small palm tree and a few flowers for the camels to chew, that Law had chosen for spending the night.

Finally his eyes fell where Law's eyes had also stopped hours before: on the small gray stone with an old rune drawn on it, a black and macabre sun with unequals rays growing from it.

His whole body tensed alarmed.

"How did you managed to find this of all places in this vast desert?" he shouted. The child's face panicking in a way that would have broken anyone's heart if they could saw him, but that made Law's frown deepen.

Law ignored him and continued stirring the stew without even deigning to look at him, with an air of offended dignity. He didn't want to talk to him, he didn't want to look at him, he just wanted to end this torture and forget the slip that he have had this morning, arrive where the Djinn wanted to go and end their deal.

But, of course, the child didn't stand still, clutching his enormous shirt with his little hands he looked around scared while walking up and down in front of Law, as if searching for something or waiting for a ghost to appear.

"We have to get out of here. Now. Don't you know how to read? This site is curs-" Suddenly the boy stopped short on his track.

Law looked up frowning and willing to kill the other. At fucking last. If this was a new joke it wasn't funny. But when he looked at the boy again something seemed to be wrong, the Djinn, or at least his form in this world, seemed to be altering, fading, changing.

His eyes suddenly turned completely black. Without pupil, without irises, just black.

The desert within Law flinched as it had never done before and suddenly Law felt... empty, void. A supernatural cold suddenly covered the small oasis and the darkness seemed to grow more dense, _it seemed to get closer and try to grab him_. Law gasped immersed in the vast solitude. No light, no sound, even the Djinn seemed broken in front of him.

A panic that he had never felt before came over him, his instinct told him to flee, now, quickly, but his body refused to move.

Opposite of him, the child smiled. A smile too big for such a small face.

"Years waiting for a miracle, years waiting for a simple sacrifice, and at the end I get the last and most powerful one from the race of Solomon, and I'm still in the middle of nowhere without the power to use him" hissed the boy with a cold and sharp voice, like glass against glass "Destiny is too cruel"

The black eyes of the Djinn drifted again over the oasis, calmly, as if studying his options, until finally they spotted on Law who remained motionless. The macabre smile widened even more.

"Though I may not have had such bad luck"

The creature began to slide over the sand then, without walking, only moving forward, causing the child's body to go through the flames while trying to get to Law. Smiling cruelly, with those black empty eyes observing him as a pray before a killer.

Law finally reacted and rose from the ground quickly while turning his back to it to run. But suddenly the boy was in front of him too, suddenly he was pushed to the ground precisely and fingers were digging into his neck with a grip a too strong for a child, suddenly his arms were being pinned over his head with just a hand leaving him at the child's complete and ultery mercy.

"Don't flee small one, it is useless"

Law panted against the grip on his neck feeling his head spinning in the absence of air.

"W-who are you?" he breathed trying struggling in the grip to no avail. This wasn't Kidd. He couldn't be Kidd.

The creature just laughed at his question in a creepy way, as it's body began to fade in a familiar swirl of smoke that yet, keep holding him in place without problem.

"I'm what you want me to be" whispered the being against Law's lips adopting the appearance of a woman with generous breasts and totally _naked_. A beautiful woman, one that would make men kneel before them, that will make them kill one another to see her in this situation.

Law however felt strangely sickened as the fingers of the women released his neck and trickled over his clothes, stroking and scratching the soft skin with her long and perfect fingernails. The creature laughed again in that empty and hoarse way "No? Are you sure? This one looked tasty, but if you aren't into that what about this one?"

And again he changed to take on the normal aspect of the Djinn: The fired red hair, the strong muscles covering every part of the body, the huge, rough hands that fit so perfectly over Law's body, and the arrogant and provocative smile that Law was learning to know and secretly like. Everything just mere centimeters from Law's own body, everything again too close and tempting, making Law lose his breath and hear his pulse quicken by the mere sight of him.

Though, thankfully, at least he was properly dressed this time, unlike the woman. Law didn't know what will be happening if he wasn't. Damn hormones and damn virginity!

Law felt his mouth dry at having Kidd cover him with his strong body, but still, the Djinn's eyes remained of that horrible black color. Distracting, cold, wrong. _This was so so wrong._ The Sanieri felt confused, he even had a strange longing for the Djinn's old eyes, that he couldn't understand. Kidd was still here, wasn't he?.

"Yes, definitely it's this one. You are a perverted one, aren't you little one?" the creature smiled victoriously, almost happy with his new dark discovery.

Without hesitation, the creature returned to his disturbing ministrations, his hands seeping through Law's thin clothes, and his mouth dropping to the tanned neck with a clear goal. Law tried to resist again, fighting the grip, trying to strike, but his body just remained motionless and with astonishment Law realized he was beginning to react to the touch of the thing that had taken control of the Djinn.

It was then when he started to panic. _Really panic_. He didn't know what was going on or how it had happened, but when the stranger's hand lowered to his crotch, something told him that he needed to stop this for several huge reasons. This was not the same Djinn that had touched him that morning with desperation and need, no, someone quite different had taken control of him, and Law felt that, if this continued, this would betray for himself and the Djinn. Something so horrible would break the little weak bonds they had created.

Their trust.

However, when he tried to use his power to defend himself, as he had done before, as he was learning to do, the desert within himself didn't answer, not even a echo, it seemed to have just disappeared suddenly from inside him leaving him void and cold.

The darkness approached and invaded everything with a slow intent.

_Plip-plip-plip_

_'One left'._ A broken dark voice murmured in the little light, inside Law, inside the creature, inside the abrasive darkness. While a dripping sound started to be heard in the immense dry land, while the color seemed to disappear from this world. _'Mine. Leave him alone'._

Law felt his throat tighten in panic. At the creature trying to rape him. At the voice looming in the darkness. He was going to die.

"Djinn stop!" he tried to calling him in desperation, needing to see his golden eyes between the darkness now everywhere, needing to see a light.

But the other continued massaging his crotch, insistent and almost painfully, trying to arouse him for some reason Law didn't understand. His eyes remained pitch black, his smile was still too big for that face, his whole being looking just wrong.

"Your friend is not here darling, and calling him will not help you." the creature murmured against his lips, with Kidd's lips, the ones Law had tasted that same morning on top of a camel "Besides, who in their right mind would stop when they are offered something like this?"

Law closed his eyes trying to relax under the hands of the other now pulling down his pants to touch his skin. He ignored it all and tried to focus on staying alive under the madness and the pressure of the situation.

The creature said that calling him didn't work and that Kidd couldn't hear him, but Law had noticed how the redhead's body had tensed with the call, as if fighting with himself. Yes, it was working. Law realized it in how the other's movements became even more hurried over his body, impatient, as if he had no time left. The creature opened Law's legs without problem, and then started pulling down at his trousers again, with force, trying to break them with a disturbing impatience.

Law felt the horror rise again in his throat choking him. _This couldn't happen._ Not to them.

"Kidd, stop!"

The creature cried over him with a voice from another world, too sharp, too unnatural to be produced by a human mouth. It spreaded by the immensity of the desert like a wave of black sand, as if it had been hit by a huge hammer. As if something had been broken.

Law gasped in pain.

However, Law turned his head again to the being, ready to call for the Djinn again. As many times as was needed. He needed to stop this nonsense! But to his surprise, when his sight focused, he found the eyes of the creature changing in rapid succession, black, gold, and again black. As if Kidd and the monster were slowly fighting, until a kind of black and weak shadow seemed to rise from the body of Djinn looming against the dim firelight.

Without a doubting in the least, without pausing for even a moment after recovering his body, Kidd raised a hand above him and towards the shadow, and a bright flame appeared on his fingers with the power of a small sun. A light that grew in the desert, beautiful, bright, full of joy and happiness.

The opposite of the thing that had attacked them.

The night and darkness that suddenly had rolled over them disappeared, the color and heat seemed to return to the world, shadows vanished, and the creature, the shadow, the thing that had tried to rape him, burst into nothingness with an unnatural human appearance.

 _'Mine'_ said the dark voice which was also disappearing. _'Soon'_

The Djinn fell then onto Law regaining his usual appearance, his fullness and bright. Law panted under him without understanding anything. Both seemed to have run out of strength and for a moment both lay on the sand over each other in a slightly awkward position. The creature had done his job and Law now had the other between his legs and his arms were still immobilized over his head by the Djinn's strong hand.

Law, however, tried to ignore the whole situation and focused on the important thing.

"W-what was that?" Law asked with his voice still too sharp from fear, he had never seen anything or heard of anything like this.

The Djinn over him sighed tiredly, as if Law's asks were annoying him, and buried his face in the hollow of Law's neck. An intimate gesture, as if only by touching and smelling Law, he could manage to calm down, as if he was trying to escape from this world for some more seconds.

"Do you really know nothing? Didn't you recognize the rune?" He muttered wearily.

Law shook his head. Kidd sighed, rubbing his cheek against Law's neck like the cat he sometimes transformed into.

"Millennia ago there was a hidden sect said to worship a new god: the god of chaos, evil and darkness, the god that would end the world one day" Kidd said with an almost sarcastic tone as if he really couldn't believed that people were so stupid as to worship something like that "Their practices, however, were a little... different from other sects, and for years they were prosecuted for murder, massacres and corruption of entire countries. The sect ended up destroyed, obviously, but many of its priests were so evil that their spirits were tied to some of the places they inhabited even after death. That's what the rune marks, the cursed place"

Law frowned.

"Then, what was he trying to do? Because that definitely wasn't…" Law didn't even want to acknowledge what could have happened. He knew the desert was dangerous, he had been taught that since childhood, but after the events of recent days, he realized that those warnings had done nothing to prepare him for this reality. This went beyond anything the elders could have taught him..

The Djinn, however, smiled sideways against his neck at his question. Law felt his lips move against his skin, his breath caressing him and warming his still cold body.

"Well, technically, in old days sex was considered another form of sinning. Many of the dark priests thought that sex was even, a more pure and refined way to reach to their dark god than a simple and vulgar murder. Corrupting a person with mere lust is much more complicated than killing someone with a knife on an altar"

Law frowned even more.

"That makes no sense, he took _your_ form, Wouldn't it have made more sense to take the form of something that the person finds attractive? Something better than you?" Law asked starting to get offended by the non challant attitude of the Djinn. He had almost being raped for dear god!

The Djinn raised his head to look at him arrogantly, not even offended, and smiled in a way that made the boy's insides tighten expectantly.

"That's... precisely what it has done" he said with a knowing smile that chilled Law's blood.

"...what?"

"It's said that the priest could steal a Djinn's magic and used it to take the form of what the person desired the most" the Djinn's smile only expanded further by his own words. "Interesting, isn't it? Human?"

Law felt his blood freeze under the arrogant gaze and suggestive tone of the Djinn. At what he was implying with that statement.

"You are inventing that!" he said offended but also entering again into a small fit. He now remembered the woman the creature had first transformed into, his mocking words.

_'You are a perverted one'_

Oh, shit.

The Djinn raised an eyebrow at Law's suddenly pale face and obvious understanding. Then he smiled evilly, clearly having a great time with Law's slip and his unexpected confession.

"Are you sure I'm wrong?" he asked with a false worried face, as he rolled his hips against Law's, legs still open on both sides of the Djinn.

Law clenched his teeth and closed his eyes suppressing a deep moan when he felt the friction against his still present and ready erection. Hard and slow, just like he liked it, just like he _needed_ it. He felt his face redden in seconds. But he couldn't help it, he was too exposed, still immobilized under the other's grip, with the other wickedly moving between his legs trying to prove a point.

The Djinn seemed to enjoy torturing him, humiliating him.

"Stop!" Law ordered anyway, refusing to surrender to the other but with his words turning into a weak moan as his body trembled under the other's care.

It was then when redhead's eyes took a known intensity. A known hunger. As if Law's weakened and horny state had weakened something dangerous in him.

"Why?" said the Djinn with his gold bright eyes roaming over the human's body. Still moving his hips against Law's most intimate part, faking slow, deep thrusts that were melting Law's brain and increasing the friction until Law gasped beneath him, arching for more "Do you have any problem with this?"

Law moaned frustrated, shamefully loud. He couldn't move or do anything, no, he could only feel what the other was doing to him, the pleasure wracking his body, the need for something more, something bigger that the other had not given him yet.

The body of the Djinn was again covering him, trapping him from head to toe but simultaneously protecting him from the darkness of the world. Tempting and teasing him in the worst way possible. His thin lips millimeters away from his, his breath against his opened and moaning mouth, letting him remember the kiss of this morning, but without giving it to him yet.

Law finally lost his patience and surrendered to the time it was him who initiated the kiss, biting and licking at the other's lips, begging for mercy.

Then the world lost all sense to Law.


	5. Hidden Lovers

Kidd felt his pulse quicken and his hands trembling when the brown haired human licked Kidd's lips anxiously, begging Kidd to take him, surrendering under his touch. _At_ _last_. After days of controlling himself, after hours dreaming and praying just to touch him, the young man finally seemed to have fallen for the indescribable attraction between them.

Kidd could finally stop resisting and claim the other's body freely.

With a delicacy that was completely new to him, Kidd lowered the hand that wasn't holding the boy's wrist down to the lean waist barely covered by the thin black silks. The other's body felt hot and shaking under him, prepared and ready for him to shatter under waves of pleasure. Damn, Kidd felt his own breathing even accelerate for being able to finally touch him, for being able to do this.

Kidd pressed Law against his body. Tightly, with a desperate possessiveness, allowing him to feel Kidd's own erection and need as he lowered his head to claim the other's lips.

The boy was his. He had been his since the moment Kidd set his eyes on him, since that night when he returned to the world. His whole being had understood what his mind had refused to accept for so long. But not anymore, he was done lying to himself, it was time to take and forget anything else.

So he drowned in the kiss, licking the brunette's mouth slowly, memorizing the texture of his lips and the flavour of his tongue, finally conquering the territory he had been obsessing over since the day he had caressed his lips of the other to stop a sandstorm.

And the reward he got from the tanned boy, moaning softly against his lips, low and happy, was all he had ever needed to life. The soft but sexy sound was making his instinct seize him, hot and demanding, as his whole body melt into the greatest pleasure he had ever felt. _He needed to be inside the boy_. His hands tightened even more against Law's body -along his waist, holding his wrist- while his mouth moved harder against the other's one, famishing over him, promising pleasure beyond possible, and making Law understand that he now belonged to Kidd.

This boy was the biggest weakness that Kidd had ever allowed himself to have.

The need to satisfy, to protect, and claim him, was something that Kidd had never felt. Not in this way, not with this hard, raw, and maddening emotions. Kidd knew he would die to protect this boy who had set him free and then screamed at him. He also knew that he should worry about this all, that he should evaluate the new and almost destructive feeling towards the boy. He knew that perhaps, what he was doing now was not the best to solve the obsessive problem.

At first, the old Djinn had associated his attraction towards the human as a material necessity. Something he needed to take out of his system after millennia locked up. But now he could not fool himself anymore. After seeing Law's terrified face from moments ago when he had almost being raped, after the panic and rage he himself had felt at seeing someone else taking his body and forcing the boy, _his boy_ , he didn't have any doubt.

He was in love with him.

It was something much bigger than the mere physical attraction he had felt for his other lovers, this was something beautiful and magical that made him lose his cool and that could also become his greatest weakness.

 _He would die for the boy_.

The mere thought frightened him. The stories of Djinns falling in love with humans never ended well. Humans had short lives, simple and quick, like the sparks of a star, they could shine bright, they could illuminate the world with their beauty, but they lasted just a few seconds. In such a little time, in their quick fast lives, their minds couldn't also match the complexity of the Djinn's, forged over eons and over civilizations. They could not see the different planes so fundamental to the existence of their race, and play in the different dimensions.

This risk, this fragile life, could mean the end of Kidd if he took the wrong step.

But another kind of fear was also there, a fear of hurting the boy instead, of leaving him alone like he had done minutes, ago and lose him without having been able to even taste him _._. Kidd would never forgive himself for losing his control so easily this morning, for leaving Law unprotected for so long. Kidd had hurt him and put his life in danger and it had scared him to death.

But that won't happen again. No, he would show Law that he didn't need to worry about those things again, that Kidd will always be with him despite his own fears. He would prove to himself that he was better than this.

The boy could have the shortest life of the planet, he could die right now and take a new and vulnerable part of Kidd with him to the other side, but the redhead didn't care. Not anymore. Law was worth that and much more, Kidd realized. So instead of worrying over what could happen, or what he could do, he would seize every moment with this human. Until Law left him and Kidd returned to sink into the darkness knowing that, at least, he had loved once.

Law arched beneath him, bringing him back to the world with the promise of his body, chasing his mouth while his hips tried to rub against Kidd's, looking for the needed friction that Kidd wasn't giving him. Kidd smiled against his hungry mouth, finding a deep pleasure in how Law's hands that gripped his shoulders, tightly, as if afraid of Kidd leaving him.

Getting away from Law's sweet and pleading mouth with more difficulty than ever, Kidd lowered his head to his neck and deposited soft kisses along his neck, getting slightly intoxicated with the incredible taste of the other's skin under his tongue. Spices and sun. Life and heat. Kidd wanted to purr again as he sucked a visible mark on that delicious skin.

His free hand lowered intently from Law's waist to the joint between his legs, squeezing his fine erection through the soft clothes, needing to feel him, needy and ready as Kidd himself. The boy was deliciously hard, his lovely and hot erection heavy against Kidd's palm, the other's contained gasps were music for Kidd's ears as Kidd caressed it.

He was so sensitive, so pure and untouched, so ready for Kidd to take. The old Djinn couldn't wait to have him deep in his mouth, while the other cried in agony from the pleasure, while he melted in his arms unable to form a sentence as Kidd showed him everything he knew.

Law returned to whimper under him and moved his hips against the Djinn's hand with his eyes tightly closed, tempting him to touch him more. Kidd happily indulged him and rubbed Law between his parted legs, over that now wet and bulging point, hearing another delighted gasp fall from the other's lips.

This was going to be Kidd's death.

He wanted then to kiss Law again, he wanted to immobilize him with the black smoke and repeat that simple weak caress over the other's cock thousand times, then strip him naked and repeat it all with his mouth, until all Kidd could hear for the rest of his life was that lovely sound, and all he could see was that body tremble under his.

Kidd wanted to do so many things for a moment, that he just stood there shaking, unable to contain the emotions and sensations that were flooding him.

However his sudden stillness and hungry eyes only seemed to arouse the boy more and drive him to madness. He apparently wasn't liking so much teasing. So, with the same hungry eyes and need in his body, Law got free from the grip, and rose from the sand pushing Kidd back until the Djinn sat on his back. Then, without stopping, without even the smallest hesitation, Law sat on Kidd's lap with his legs on either side of his body taking the top position.

Kidd felt dark lips against his. Anxious and commanding, not separating from his own ones for more than the two seconds it took the human to breathe.

Kidd kissed him back just as eagerly, still slightly dazed by how the other was responding to him. So trusting, so desperate. With no more patience, the Djinn grabbed the other's clothes and pushed open Law's thin black tunic revealing more perfect brown skin and the dark taut nipples of the boy that practically begged him to be bitten.

However Law didn't even let him taste them.

Without waiting, without foreplay, without the slightest warning, Law managed to sneak a hand through Kidd's heavy clothes and closed his fingers around the redhead's cock. Tightly, almost with satisfaction, moaning again in that helpless way that made Kidd tremble in ecstasy, as if just by holding him he could get his own orgasm, as if reality had surpassed any fantasy the boy had ever had.

Kidd fell back, lying down on the sand, barely containing his own orgasm as the boy stroked him with enthusiasm, hard and rough, up and down, from base to tip petting the heated skin with soft fingertips. Kidd's own fingers dug into the buttocks of the boy sitting on his thighs, his whole body seeming to stiffen in pleasure while he barely managed to stop his climax.

_He couldn't come now. Not before doing anything._

The boy looked at him from above. His eyes looked intense and proud, wandering over Kidd's body and his bare chest, looking almost hungry at the muscles tensing and relaxing as Law's hand squezed and fondled Kidd's cock, learning his way. He even smirked when Kidd moaned helplessly as the human's hand lowered to fondle his balls.

Kidd felt his own cheeks redden at the pathetic sound.

However Law repeated the touch, first his cock, pupping it from the base to the tip slow but maddeningly tight, now even easier thanks to Kidd's precum, before lowering his fingers to torture and clench his balls until Kidd was seeing stars dancing before his eyes. Then he repeated it, and repeated it and repeated it, slower, tighter, until Kidd knew that he would faint right there under the other's hands from the need and the pleasure.

Arching his back from the ground, feeling the sand scratch at his back and the boy licking his lips with certain ideas in his mind, Kidd couldn't contain the whimpers and dirty moans as his hips moved in coordination with the boy's hand. Shamefully, pleading for a little more speed, bringing Kidd closer and closer to the edge.

_Not like this._

"No, stop!" Kidd didn't want it to end so quickly, it would be humiliating. He had planned a lot more to do to the smirking boy. A lot more.

However, Law only smirked more, with a content glint in his eyes, he seemed to be able to dominate the world and subject it to eternal servitude. Just as he had done with Kidd. The dark haired boy leaned forward then, until their lips were mere millimeters apart, until they could taste each other between their heavy breathes.

Without stopping his assault on Kidd's painful erection, without giving him the slightest opportunity to fight back, making Kidd, prince of the most powerful Djinn's house, a groaning and helpless mess under him.

"Why?" said the boy mockingly but with his own cock pressed now against Kidd's tortured one thanks to the position "Do you have a problem with this?"

Kidd roared. The sound too wild and animalistic to be produced by a human throat. The need and frustration growing in him, along with a fascination for the human's personality. Dear god, he had thrown Kidd's own punch back at him. Kidd had never met anyone like Law. Someone who would return each of his blows, who could tease him back, who could reduce him to a pleading and useless mess with a few words and a few caresses.

Kidd himself felt almost like a virgin right now.

Possessively squeezing the ass of the other between shaking fingers, pressing him further against his hard body and his burning erection, Kidd called the power he shouldn't call, and instantly, both were turned over on the sand until Kidd had the other under him again. _As it should_ be.

Law's legs opened on both sides of his body, offering himself up to him without even realising it. His hungry mouth clashed again against Kidd's in a hungry punishing kiss while both ended up covered with the sand, half naked, and deeply aroused.

Law kept caressing his erection between his long fingers with obsession, not surrendering to Kidd's demands, even accelerating the pace and making Kidd groan and lose his balance for a little moment. _Kidd couldn't ask him to stop, wouldn't ask him to stop again_. _This felt too good_. Thrusting his hips against the boy's willing hand and rubbing himself over Law like an animal in heat, Kidd finally bit him on the shoulder to contain his voice, and made the black smoke remove what was left from the tan's clothes.

Kidd wanted to undress him himself, he wanted to stroke and lick every millimeter of skin that was slowly exposed, he wanted to find every weak point, mark his path over Law, make him reach orgasm after orgasm for the rest of the night, and the next day and the next few weeks. He wanted to explore his new lover, memorize every curve and crock of caramel legs, make the other have the best night of his life until Law couldn't live without Kidd touching him every time.

But that would take time and patience, a kinder mind, and Kidd didn't think he could stand the feeling of the boy's fingers around his swollen cock for a minute longer without turning into a lustful monster. So the boots that the smoke had been unable to tear away without hurting the boy would remain for now, although Kidd planed to remove them later, he wanted the boy completely naked and exposed to him.

Unfortunately, now that he focused and to Kidd's dismay the vision was almost more erotic that way when they separated.

Law's upped half what totally exposed, covered in sweat and gleaming under the moonlight, while his lower half however was another matter. His proud dick and ass were displayed for Kidd's eyes, the pants have been ripped over the good places, but the amazing soft legs were still covered with the dark material, adding to the mystery that was the boy and to the erotic image.

"You're cheating" the revealed human panted under Kidd's eyes, as he tightened his grip around Kidd cock now between his own legs, until Kidd had to bite his lips not to cry in desperation.

"You too" Kidd growled in response as the smoke grabbed and separated the boy's bare legs, exposing him even more to Kidd's eager eyes.

Kidd's hands then moved to touch the soft entrance of the boy's body splayed underneath him. It was begging for his touch, twitching under his fingertips, ready to be claimed by the cock that the boy was stroking with hot fingers. Kidd gasped and closed his eyes for a moment, as he felt the small ring of muscles resist under the soft pressure of his fingers.

Finally _. Finally. He had waited so many centuries._

Law suddenly got motionless under Kidd, his skin covered in sand and sweat, his body preciously naked, his hand finally releasing the hard member of the redhead as his mind now focused on something else.

Kidd finally breathed again without the pleasure of being touched by Law clouding his mind. The heat of the boy covered him and warming him in more than one way, but Kidd felt his mind focus again.

It was then, in the little moment of peace, where Kidd rose above Law and looked into his eyes searching for something that he himself couldn't understood. Doubt, fear, something that would stop him now, something that would save him from falling into the abyss where he was about to fall.

But Law returned Kidd's pleading gaze with an intense one, almost defiant, daring him to continue with what they were doing. To take the last step and fulfil an unsaid promise. To link them forever.

Kidd just watched him a bit more, doubting, scared himself. Law's cheeks were slightly red, his lips wet, and his breathing altered. His legs were still opened and ready, his body shivering under Kidd's stillness and his eyes hold an scared and unsure glint. He was scared of Kidd ditching him now.

 _Law was scared_.

Kidd felt the protectiveness seize him. No, he was not going to cause him harm. Not again. He would hold him forever and prove it to him. The younger was clearly nervous, it was probably his first time doing it, and a betrayal now could break him forever. Kidd would not do it. Not this time.

Kidd then began to make small circles over Law's sweet opening, almost absently, letting him get used to the feel of his fingers in that sensitive area. Law's gaze trembled slightly at the gesture, nervous, but he continued to hold the Djinn eyes without even blinking, while licking his lips and provoking him more.

Kidd introduced the first finger into the other, in the deep meaningful silence, slowly, almost reverently, feeling the other frown slightly before accepting him in, feeling his own hard cock about to explode when he felt how wet and hot the other was inside.

Kidd played around it for a bit, thrusting in and out, twisting the finger one side or the other, studying Law's reactions and the beautiful little sounds he made, dying at how perfect Law felt surrounding him.

Yet Law didn't complain for even a moment, instead he only bit his lip as if trying to hold a deep moan and continued looking at Kidd with steady heated eyes.

Kidd introduced a second finger slowly after, accepting the dare. This time Law threw his head back, finally releasing a gasp of pure pleasure, without pain, without the slightest sign of trouble, with his beautiful gray eyes losing focus. Law even began to move hips then, responding to the movements of Kidd's fingers, slowly pushing himself onto them.

Kidd took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The tanned man seemed almost made for him to fuck him, without pain, without worry, just opened and eager to take Kidd's cock. Dear god, he almost seemed at the verge of an orgasm and Kidd had not even fucked him seriously.

"Do you still want me to stop?" Kidd asked breathlessly, not being able to help himself mock the boy's lustful body, as he pulled and returned to sink his fingers in the other's welcomed warmth.

"No!" Law choked a whimper, now finally lost in the pleasure, moving his hips up and down Kidd's fingers, impaling himself with them in earnest, spreading his legs even more and adjusting to the new intrusion. Sounding much more needy than he had looked at first glance.

Kidd groaned and lowered his head to make a long lick over the arched and hard cock of the other, teasing him, making him drown in pleasure before rising again over his body and sinking his knuckles deep into his heat with more force than ever..

"What do you want me to do then, Law?" he asked darkly, just enjoying the moment of pure victory, of power, and pure happiness. Getting addicted with the other finally submitting to him with such readiness.

"Please!" Law cried then clutching at his red hair and trying to push himself up against Kidd's body "Please! I-I need ... I'm so...empty,more... p-please more"

The tanned cheeks were deep red, his mouth open with his moans, pleading Kidd to shut it. Kidd introduced a third finger in the heat of the other and Law this time shook under him with a scream of pleasure escaping his lips, loud and clear, just for Kidd's delight. Kidd kissed those precious cheeks, the gasping lips, as he kept thrusting his fingers to the knuckles in Law's body, finally hitting that point he had sought from the beginning.

"Law, I don't understand you, I need you to talk clearly to me, what-exactly-do-you-want?" He teased even more, punctuating his words with a hit over the other's prostate, reducing the other to a pleading mess with wave after wave of pleasure.

"Fuck me Kidd! I need you inside! _Please, I beg you_!" Law finally asked, grabbing the other by his hair to push their bodies together, until every inch of his skin was touching the other and an electric current run between them. "Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!"

Kidd finally conceded it to him, lowering himself over the other, covering him with his body, Kidd held his gaze seriously, as the other only gasped and opened his legs even more for him, trying to accommodate him between them and incite him to end it all at once. Kidd leaned over him even more, blocking him from the world, preventing him from seeing anything but Kidd, preventing the world itself from seeing the wonder Law was.

Carefully, Kidd led his cock to Law's hungry entrance, letting him feel what was to come. Law moaned loud and clear just by seeing that movement, needy, longing for it, and twisting under him, lifting his hips as if that was all he needed. But Kidd still tortured him for a last moment, adoring to see that need in the gray eyes, with the tip of his cock brushing against his ready entrance, drawing tempting circles but not taking the last step yet.

Law shifted beneath him, trying to impale himself, gasping for breath, pleading now without the slightest shame, asking him to fuck him in the most degrading way possible, until Kidd's self-control began to tremble at the sight of the other reduced to that state thanks to him. So desperate to feel his cock.

The redhead buried his head in the other's neck, sucking in his scent, feeling Law's body tremble fully prepared for him. _To become his._

"I love you," he said quietly, finally admitting the inevitable to the other, what he had refused to acknowledge until the last moment.

His hips finally made the last move.

With a single deep thrust, he buried himself to the base in the other's body.

Law arched beneath him with a powerful cry escaping his lips. With his whole body tensing in a sudden orgasm as he painted the little gap between their bodies with his own cum. Kidd felt him tighten around his cock even more, trapping him in a deadly grip that made him groan in pleasure. For a moment he too felt ready to fall into the abyss just with seeing and feeling him lose it, _seeing Law finally being his_.

But he withstood the temptation.

It wasn't the time to end it yet, because Law still deserved much more pleasure than that simple little orgasm he had just had.

Planting the palms of his hands, and his knees firmly on the sand, on either side of Law's body, Kidd began to thrust into the other. Hard, deep, and fast. Just like Law seemed to like, their bodies clashing, making obscene sounds that got lost in the warm night, seeking even more pleasure in the other.

Without rest, not even letting him recover from the hight, Kidd fucked Law through his orgasm, against the sand, not letting him think of anything else than what Kidd was doing to him.

Law started to sob something, his name, a plea, but Kidd didn't understand it nor wanted to, the redhead was too busy trying to control the animal in which he seemed to have turned when he finally felt Law beneath him so open and ready for him.

His hands then realigned Law's body on his cock until he hit with each thrust that weak spot inside the other with satisfaction and a strange concentration, until the sobs became screams in his ears. Until the whole desert heard his name from Law's lips and knew what Kidd was doing.

Pleased with himself, the redhead began to focus on his own and Law's pleasure with more intent. His hands locked on the other's hips, holding him in place and preventing the other from escaping. The brunette seemed to have lost control of his limbs, and his whole body seemed to shake between spasms with each new thrust, with each new orgasm after another orgasm, while Kidd fucked him into oblivion within that empty land, while black smoke surrounded them and caressed Law's limp cock again with a thousand invisible mouths, inciting him once more.

Kidd looked at him intensely, wanting Law to understand what was going on, memorizing this precious moment for himself, getting lost in these beautiful gray eyes. He kissed him again with desperation, caressed every inch of his tanned body with reverence, every wisp of smoke wanting to feel the body beneath him, nothing seemed to be enough to sate his hunger for the other.

Law groaned in desperation unable to hold out under so much intensity. He bit Kidd's neck, falling to the most basic instinct, marking Kidd as his own too, without even realizing what he was doing. Making Kidd speed up his hips just by feeling it, by feeling Law claiming him back.

Law's nails hurt Kidd's back where they were sinking into his skin, his heels kept digging into Kidd's lower back encouraging him to fuck him deeper, harder, although Law couldn't stand anymore roughness but at the same time couldn't get enought of Kidd's thick cock. Kidd didn't stop, he just poundet harder into Law's ass, opening him more, driving into him in a wild way.

Law felt too perfect around him, too soft and warm, made just for him. Fucking him was like going home, and Law seemed to be feeling the same for the desperate sobbing sounds he made every time Kidd nearly left his body only to plunge into him again.

Kidd knew at that moment that nothing would ever be as before. He would never find another lover like Law, he would never feel as much pleasure as he did with this human. Law had become the only thing that could make him feel this way, the only one who had turned a vulgar, impersonal experience like sex into something indispensable without which Kidd could no longer live.

_Kidd had fallen in love with the mortal._

The heat began to expand in the low part of his back, impatient, ready. Law had fallen back on the sand again in another orgasm, his body holding Kidd taut, his mouth emitting those faint, small sounds as his whole body gleamed with Kidd's bites, with his marks, and with his own essence covering his stomach.

He was perfect.

Kidd joined their mouths and kissed him again, caressed his hair and red cheeks with possessively. _Now Law was his._ Now they couldn't escape from this, whatever this was. Now he wasn't alone anymore in the world.

With one final heavy thrust, Kidd sank as deep as he could into the other's body and let the wave of pleasure take him with a cry of euphoria.

When Kidd came down from his orgasm minutes later, his body could barely move as it should, his muscles were lax, too relaxed, and his breathing had deepened and become slower. Law, on his part, seemed to have fallen asleep underneath him after their encounter but was still shaking slightly as if his body just couldn't come down from his high.

"I love you," he repeated rawly. "I love you Law." His voice sounded broken, desperate, sad to see that Law had not answered him back when he had said it before. As if in the back of his head he expected Law to never answer him in the same way, that this would just be sex for Law.

As if he knew that despite the orgasms and this new amazing part of their relationship, them living together was just impossible. An immortal could not fall in love with a mortal, the rules had been clear and Kidd had been stupid for breaking them.

...oOo...

Kidd watched him sleep for a moment in the silence of the cold night. Law looked utterly wrecked and beautiful, his long limbs stretched in the pale sand, his breathing slow and trusting, and the prove of their love making covering every part of the caramel skin. Kidd just didn't want to move. He wanted to contemplate him forever, memorise every moment, and every lash from those gray eyes.

However, the disaster between their bodies was beginning to dry up, and the position in which they had finished had to be too uncomfortable for his little human. The redhead didn't want to do him any harm or cause him more soreness, so at the end Kidd just retreated from the human's body - sadly, feeling the heat and tightness of the other stop wrapping around his dick in that perfect way- and got up on his feet ready to work.

Creating a better and bigger tent with his magic and then taking care of Law was a pleasant task. His whole being felt calmed, finally sated, his body at ease after years of abstinence, and his mind happy and proud in a way he didn't understand.

Kidd created a huge tent, one fitted for a king, with high ceilings of dark camel pelts, and floors covered with the embroidered carpets. He then created a plush bed for the both of them, a bronze bathtub with warm perfumed water for Law's tired muscles, and trays full of the best food he could imagine for his human to recover his strength. Because when Law felt fine, when his body recovered his stamina, they would repeat the mind blowing experience, again and again, until Law could no longer walk or think of any other thing. _There was no other plan in Kidd's mind_. The human was now his by his own accord, and it was a Djinn's duty to satisfy the needs of his lover.

When everything looked good, perfect, and to Kidd's liking, the Djinn returned outside, took Law into his arms with care and love, and returned inside to deposit him in the big bathtub. Then, not worrying about his own nakedness or the state of his body, Kidd cleaned Law up with a bathe clothe and relaxing soaps, passing the small things over Law's limp body, wiping up the traces of semen and sand with his hands and memorizing the color of his marks on the other's dark skin. The boy meanwhile was unable to wake up after the intense session, no matter what Kidd did, and he slept peacefully while Kidd took care of him, looking slightly proud of himself.

If Kidd would be a cat right now he would probably be purring madly.

When the boy was finally cleaned of dirt and covered with the pleasant smell of the jasmin water, Kidd dried him with a line towel and lowered him in the middle of the huge bed. He forced Law to drink a bit of goat milk and eat some of the honey pastels, tempting his subconscious mind with dark kisses and promises for more. Law occasionally opened his eyes and looked at him in a way that made Kidd's heart race, his face heat, and all the blood go back down into the lower regions of his anatomy, but Law still looked unable to do anything but sleep, so everything was safe for now.

Finally Kidd pushed the sheets back over the tanned and inviting body before letting him sleep between the soft warm cotton sheets.

Then it was Kidd's own turn. The redhead bathed quickly ignoring his new erection, ate something from the huge tray of food -not that he needed it being a magical powerful being and all that, but mortal pleasures were still good and his taste buds appreciated them- and finally went back to bed ready to sleep next to Law and rise the next day with him in his arms. As it should have been from the first damn day.

But then, when he was about to go inside the bed where his new beautiful lover waited for him, something stopped him.

A strange pulse. An unknown presence that seemed to be somehow in the tent. Spying on them. Observing them. Kidd looked into the silent room with dangerous eyes, looked into the different planes of his mind trying to find the cause of the uneasiness, eager to kill the thing that was threatening his Law and him. He studied the silent movement of the wind against the walls of the tent, or the shadows of the fire against the canvas.

But there was _nothing_ there.

Frowning for a moment he looked at Law again, sleeping peacefully on the bed. This was just his imagination a paranoia after the last attack. Ignoring his instincts and his senses that couldn't find something, Kidd got into bed with the tempting tanned boy. He hugged him carefully between his arms, kissed the soft hair on his head, and smiled as the man seemed to crawl even more to his body seeking Kidd's heat.

It wasn't difficult for him to fall asleep that night.

…...oOo…...

Law woke up the next morning knowing he was all alone. He didn't know why he knew it, the Djinn always disappeared in the most inopportune moments and reappeared when he wanted, but this time something felt different, his own instinct telling him that the Djinn had left him _permanently_.

Law opened his eyes and looked at the empty new tent in silence remembering bits of the night before and how the Djinn had cared for his wellbeing. Kidd had helped him and nurtured him while Law had been practically incapable of doing anything but breathe.

What had happened even before that, what had caused his body to be so useless, still made Law's mind and body tremble. It had just been incredible, an experience that had changed Law's life in more ways than one, he wasn't a blushing virgin anymore, he didn't think he could have sex this great with another being that wasn't Kidd himself. Law remembered it without problem, it had been almost branded into his mind for eternity, the hotness, the possessiveness, the numbing _pleasure and pleasure and pleasure_.

The Djinn's huge confession.

What the Djinn had said in the middle of all that new experiences and emotions, had made a new, warm feeling began to spread up in Law's chest, just as when Kidd had taken care of him, touching him as if Law was a god. Law had even believed for a moment that that feeling was reciprocated, that they both felt the same toward one another, the Djinn had confessed after all.

 _But Kidd was gone_. _He had abandoned him as everyone in his life had done. He had used Law and now he was gone_.

Law felt the familiar pain, betrayal and pain gripping him again and for a moment he just wanted to go back under the sheets and cry it all out. But it didn't make any sense. Law had hated the Djinn from the beginning, they had spent most of their time together fighting, Law should be happy that the other had finally let him go, that it all had ended, that he didn't need to follow him to that dark place.

But even so, something in his mind told him that he was just fooling himself, that he had trusted another being again, opened up to him, showed his true self, just to be abandoned again.

Eustass Kidd was gone.

Rising quietly from the bed, with his mind just paralyzed, with his body acting by itself, Law approached the table with food and ate some dates from a plate before realizing that his stomach was too tight to tolerate anything. So instead he started to dress. Trying not to think about the cold and heavy hole in his chest. Another one. The final one.

What was he going to do now alone again in the mean world? He didn't know where he was, he was just free, on his own, he could do what he wanted. _But what did he want?_

The question remained the same as days ago. He had regained his beloved freedom, but he had no reason to use it now. There was nothing worth fighting for, nothing that would have meant a goal in his life, for a moment the night before he had thought to find a new goal, and a new meaning for his useless life.

But not anymore.

Kidd was gone.

Sighing, Law left the tent now dressed in plain clothes, to see if Kidd had also left him a camel or a horse so he could return to the civilization. He needed more people around him, noise, a work, something to distract him and make him forget what had happened the night before.

But what was outside the tent woke him from his numb depressed state like a slap on the face.

 _The temple_. That dark, black spot that the desert had been so terrified of, stood before him proud, big and looming. The bare naked ruins, blackened by the punishing sun of millenia, were crumbled, leaving only a little dark entrance. A door to a hell from where a freezing cold and a sense of panic escaped.

Law gasped. Then frowned feeling an unease grip his throat. How have they gotten here? Hadn't they been far away the night before? Had Kidd transported them while Law had been unconscious?

Law observed then the footprints of a human heading from the tent to that dark temple, and knew instantly that they were Kidd's ones. Steady, perfect, almost unconscious.

Something wasn't right. Something was happening and Law had the feeling that he was running out of time. Kidd was not here, the ruins had appeared out of nowhere, Kidd had gone inside them.

The brown haired man hesitated not knowing what to do, feeling his mind pushing him to go find Kidd while his instinct told him to run in the other direction.

Law looked one last time at the tent behind him. Full of Kidd's gifts, a warm, comforting, and secure place where they had shared an amazing night, a clear statement from the redhead that made the butterflies flutter again in Law's stomach pathetically.

Yet he could be wrong. Kidd could have really betrayed him, abandoned him to enter into that temple, _used Law_ , and if Law were to go after him he could hurt Law again.

Should he risk everything, his own life, his broken heart, for just that?

The decision was easy and surprised him. Turning around, Law began to walk toward the temple where Kidd had disappeared, fighting every instinct that shouted at him to run from a certain death.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my lovely people, are you liking the thing? THEN LEAVE A FUCKING COMMENT! Cos I don't know if I'm doing this right, or wrong, or you don't fucking care, and it's fucking stressing me! I know you are there my dear assholes, I see you follow the fic and giving useless kudos that won't give feedback~ And if I can write a 40k monstrosity you can also write a two sentence coment telling me what's your fucking opinion!
> 
> Do it darlings, I don't care if it's even bad, I just need something, and this is the lemon chapter, we shall all be happy, make the author happy~
> 
> Or I fucking promise I will have my revenge and make u cry.
> 
> Xoxo


	6. Hidden Monsters

The temple was not like Law had expected. The place was huge, halls and rooms succeeded one after another in what in ancient times must have been a huge city of cult. The ceilings were high and were framed by huge arches and round domes decorated with sacred texts and breathtaking images. The rooms seemed to have no end, wealth and beauty reached each corner in a place that, from the outside, had seemed much smaller and more rudimentary. Law moved through the place as if it was a living dream. Patios with dry plants gave way to endless rooms and stairways that seemed to ascend to the sky among ruins invaded by the intruding vegetation.

However, the old sumptuousness of the salons was relegated to a second place by the disturbing atmosphere. The color seemed to have disappeared from this place, the warm breeze of the desert seemed unable to penetrate the huge windows and thick walls, and the silence between the ruins of the palace made Law shiver.

As he moved on, it started growing colder and colder.

The corridors kept appearing one after another, and the tanned boy continued to advance for what seemed to be hours, without rest, going deeper into that foreign world of luxury and shadows, but at the same time feeling more and more removed from the reality that surrounded him. As if the dream was becoming deeper and the details fuzzier. The light of the place disappeared slowly, his own hands seemed to be losing color until he himself appeared to be part of that place of greyish colors.

The cold became more and more intense and his mind began to cloud and lose its purpose. Why had he entered the temple? Who was he looking for? Why did he keep going on?

However, his legs didn't seem to be able to stop and Law only continued walking in the labyrinth. For weeks. Or months. Room after room. Dome after dome. Until the light disappeared altogether and until his breath began to ache in that horrible cold. Law's legs began to go numb, each step was harder than the previous one, each breath smaller in his chest, his eyes could no longer see anything in the dark, and his mind couldn't remembered his own name.

 _But still his legs seemed unable to stop_. Law wanted to scream then, he wanted to turn around and leave that dreadful place, he wanted to stop seeing room after room of an old wealth.

Then, as he thought that this would be his end, as he could barely breathe, as his whole body trembled with spasms from the cold, everything just stopped. Law opened his eyes panting and feeling his whole body covered in sweat and, confused, he looked around without understanding what he saw or where he was.

This room looked different from all the other thousands Law had seen. It was more rudimentary, more primitive, more dangerous. This room was real. It was a perfect cube of black and silver walls that seemed to emit a strange light. It was a cage, a broken one, without doors or windows, but with a broken crack in one of the walls of stone. A diminute break that shouldn't be there, a break that had released something that shouldn't have left this place.

Law felt his whole being respond in horror at that little fracture in the rock and a macabre laugh sounded behind him and reverberated on the imposing walls until his blood froze.

Law turned abruptly, staring at the figure behind him, the other and only individual in this abandoned room: Kidd.

Everything seemed to come back to his mind at once, the trip, the kidnapping, the fighting, the night before, why he was there. _Kidd._ But the being before him wasn't exactly Kidd. The creature had the appearance of the Djinn, his tousled hair, his arrogant smile, but it wasn't Kidd. The color seemed to have disappeared from his body, from his bright red hair and pale skin. His eyes were all black, empty, his smile was a twisted grin and everything in Law yelled at him to run and get away from this being. His own magic seemed to panic as it had never done before going ballistic in his own mind.

This being was wrong. Terribly unmade. His mere existence was a threat against any other, his breath seemed to annihilate all that was beautiful in this world. Something like that shouldn't exist. Something like that had to be retained, locked away, subdued.

"Kidd?" Law's voice sounded weak and pathetic in the face of so much evil, in the face of the immensity of what lay before him.

The being approached with that strange smile, with that weird broken moves, and Law stepped back instinctively, needing to get away from the darkness. However, the cage was not large enough, only a handful of people could fit in it, and without being able to avoid it, his back hit the cold, dark stone at his back.

"WhaT arrre yuU?" The voice sounded deformed, strange, as if he did not know how to use it, as if he had never had the need to use it. The wall behind Law changed under that voice, seemed to become liquid, seemed to catch him with long deadly fingers that nailed at his arms.

Law gasped in panic, not understanding what was going on or how to react. His mind could barely think between the maddened desert in his mind and the sheer darkness surrounding him. Each and every one of his instincts shouted at him to run while the hostile liquid seemed to trap him against the stone, locking him and chaining him on the spot.

"Kidd, stop, this isn't funny"

"WhaT arrre yuU?" The creature repeated, now inches away from his face, lifting a hand up to Law's neck and pressing it with long, icy fingers "YuU arrre noT hiumann. BuT yuU doon'T belong To The other rAcesssh"

The fingers seemed to squeeze even tighter around his neck, blocking the air, suffocating him. Law panicked. _He could not move, he was going to die, Kidd would die too, he could already be dead_. His mind simply lost control. Without being aware of it, his power took over, Law felt it stir inside himself, hot, powerful, and loyal, ready to attack the creature that hurt him, even if it meant its own death.

In his mind the thing before him was no longer Kidd, and therefore, it needed to die, for Kidd's memory, for what had happened between them. The sand seemed to flow around him, protecting and helping him, ready to end the person Law had trusted and loved the most in this evil world.

But in the odd silence of the cage nothing happened.

Law looked around in horror, not understanding why his power wasn't working. His body was still covered by the black liquid which was ripping something off him, freezing his bones, sucking out the heat of the desert itself. The creature in front of him smiled with a teeth-rimmed mouth, and then seemed to laugh again with a high pitched sound as he tightened his hold on his neck making him see stars in the dark.

Law invoked his power a second time, this time with an order of his conscious mind, but again the result was the same. Something prevented it from acting, something was blocking the entrance of his magic. _The cage_. The cage that had been created so the creature could not get out. And also, so that nothing could enter.

Something began to drip then. A sound almost timid and innocent. A sound Law realized he had heard before.

_Dip-dip-dip._

The creature bowed its head and looked at him again with eyes flooded with darkness and chaos. "WhaT arrrre yuU?" It repeated again, almost with satisfaction, as the smell of death and fear surrounded him then when the strange liquid finally covered him completely.

The first wave of pain came from his leg, then another on his chest, then his arm and head until Law's whole body seemed to agonize with pain. Law understood then that the strange dripping sound came from himself. From his own blood. From the strange liquid surrounding him.

The darkness was eating him.

...oOo...

When Kidd opened his eyes there was nothing around him. _Just nothingness_. The most absolute immensity extending around him in each and every direction projecting to infinity until the mind seemed to cloud over its vastness. Emptiness and silence were enveloped him like a protective blanket, hiding him and saving him from the cruel world, closing him in a new dimension that he had never seen but which seemed simply perfect.

Kidd closed his eyes again feeling peaceful after centuries of struggle and suffering, and for a long time he only floated in the middle of that nothingness without time and space. Slowly becoming one with it.

His mind began to grow empty. In a blink that could have lasted years he forgot who he was. In the next moment he forgot his own name and why he was in this place. His family, his past, his future. _Everything_. And it felt perfect.

His instincts telling him that this was terribly wrong, that this wasn't right, but none of it seemed to be of importance here. His feelings were numb, his whole being fading and submerging into that empty new dimension.

Forcing his essence to relax and accept the change, Kidd felt grateful. This was for the best, it felt good, the weight of the world seemed to be fading from his shoulders, the world seemed to become simpler as the layers of his mind disappeared until he was naked before the immensity.

The anguish and terror of his life disappeared into nothingness. Their magic followed them without hesitation.

After that there wasn't much left for his whole being, it will be soon when he could become one with this marvelous place. Kidd couldn't wait for it anymore. However, in that last moment, in that last act of abandonment, Kidd doubted. There was something that he couldn't leave, something that he needed to protect, something that couldn't disappear into nothingness.

Kidd observed that something, it felt like memories, fragmented parts of his memory that despite his efforts to maintain them alive, they seemed to vanish before his eyes devoured by the greedy emptiness and leaving a feeling of pure sadness. _Gray eyes, warm skin and a smile that seemed capable of conquering the world_. Kidd felt his chest swell with something warm, something that felt much better than the emptiness.

Those memories were important, and for a moment Kidd fought the nothingness for them. However, the void was large, ancient and powerful.

Kidd felt his will undo and the memories leaving his mind. Kidd felt the last chunk of his existence about to be devoured, his essence, that part that made him who he was, blinking to the point of extinction.

A cry of pure pain broke then through the nothingness. A cry of pain that didn't belong to Kidd but that still seemed to break him into a thousand pieces.

The nothingness then stopped being nothing and filled with darkness. A terrible darkness, painful and chaotic. A darkness he had never seen before.

Kidd was instantly released from the strange enchantment, and, for a moment, he could only gasp as it all popped back into his mind again. The pain, the rage, the thousand years locked, the magic, his family dying, the desert, the shadow, the human with his magic.

Law.

 _LawLawLawLawLawLawLawLawLawLawLawLaw_.

Kidd clung to that memory as his mind seemed to explode with the torrent of things flooding it, his whole self seeming to realign and reassemble itself, while the fragments of his person escaped from the blackness to rejoin again as one.

The darkness hissed around him, furious, annoyed at having lost its prey when it had been so close to devouring it, but Kidd refused to let it, refused to approach it as his mind began to remember what that thing was. The temptation, the monster, the evil, the end of the world.

Another tearful scream filled the air, but this time Kidd recognized it. Law. Law was in danger. Law was suffering.

A rage and a fury he had not felt for a long time flooded his mind and destroyed every other emotion. He had been called a monster for centuries. The prince of his race. A natural catastrophe. For centuries Kidd had changed the world after losing his own, had created mountains, and deserts with the fury of his magic. He had destroyed each and every one of his enemies and had awakened an evil that should have never been released.

For centuries Kidd had lost himself in despair.

But this time it was going to be different. This time he refused to lose anyone else. This time he would save his mate.

….oOo...

Law felt the darkness retreat and release him. The pain was slowly receding, but Law still didn't feel his legs or his arms where the liquid had touched him. Law didn't even dare to look at himself. His skin felt melted, burned, as if something fundamental had been removed from him, something that he would never recover.

The young Sanieri fell to the ground unable to support himself in the sea of pain and blinked in confusion. What had happened? Why had the darkness let him loose? Dazed he looked at the creature in front of him in the small stone cage, and had to restrain a horrified scream.

Something was not right. Something was going terribly wrong. Pure power flooded the place. Law felt it in his being, like an enormous pressure that wasn't allowing him to breathe, like the struggle between two forces of nature fighting before him in that small locked space.

Law didn't even understand what his eyes were seeing. In an instant Kidd stood before him, his golden eyes glowing with rage and determination as his body seemed to writhe in pain. In the next instant a shadow seemed to detach from his body, an exact copy of black, as the reflection in a mirror. Then the image seemed to blink, to undo and to remake itself as if it were nothing more than a hallucination of his mind, like an intermittent blink. Kidd was suddenly at the other end of the room, bumping into the wall, sliding to the floor. But it was not Kidd, his gaze was black again, his smile too full of teeth.

Kidd was trying to free himself from the darkness, Law realized. He was fighting against it. Kidd was still alive! He was still there, he had not left him as Law had convinced himself that had happened!.

Law wanted to get up and help him then, wanted to shout, and encourage him to continue fighting against that force. But he couldn't yet move. His limbs still seemed paralyzed by the pain, the magic that flooded the place, and that confusing struggle of wills prevented him from even breathing.

"Kidd" he called him in a voice too weak and strangled "Kidd please, don't leave me, you're the only one I have"

The creature looked at him. His eyes rapidly changing between gold and black, his hands scraping the wall with long nails, his form dissolving into a mixture of black smoke and liquid. Law felt the magic throb in his temples, dense, powerful, ancient.

The cage began to tremble. It wasn't going to take much more. Law felt his own bones tremble under the pressure, about to explode painfully.

The creature's eyes were a penetrating black.

_They were losing the battle._

"Kidd" he finally called in a fatalistic tone, losing all hope that they would both come out of this alive. "Kidd I love you, please don't leave me" the dark-haired man finally said, unable to keep it to himself for longer.

Because it was the truth, it was what he had discovered that morning when he had woken up alone in the sand - _alone, abandoned again_ \- and with a pain he had never felt before. It was what he had sworn to tell Kidd when he had entered the palace, the reason he had continued to walk room, after room, after room, although his whole body ached and his instincts shouted to him to turn around.

He had to answer Kidd, he had to let him know that the feeling was mutual. That he loved him as he had never loved anyone. He wanted the other to know it if they were going to die here, he wanted Kidd to understand that he wasn't alone either, that the years of capture and suffering had been worthwhile, that they could have been happy.

Tears fell from his eyes, and Law found himself unable to see the creature annihilating the love of his life, he turned his head prepared for the worst.

However, the creature reappeared in front of him without even giving him that option. His black eyes full with hatred and rage. It was going to kill him, yet Law was prepared. He would follow Kidd into the underworld, he would follow him anywhere.

But the creature just put his hands to his own head with a wince of pain. His eyes returned to an intense golden hue and finally, he _screamed_.

Not a human scream, but a sound that made the stone vibrate and Law's eardrums bleed by how high it was emitted. Law felt his body tremble even worse than before and for a moment he thought that this was it, that this was the end, and that he too would break.

But then, when Law was just about to fall, everything stopped. Suddenly. Kidd fell at Law's feet, his body heavy and almost lifeless, like that of a puppet whose threads had been cut. His gaze was that of ancient gold, his skin was covered with sweat, his breathing was terribly altered. _But it was Kidd_. He had defeated the shadow, he had managed to resist it.

Law threw himself onto Kidd's limp form, desperately, ignoring the pain of his own body, his cheeks still covered with tears, his body weakened by pain, stress, magic, and that strange cry. Kidd squeezed his waist in response and buried his head in his neck with a small gasp of pain and need. His arms felt weak around his body, tired, slightly transparent and Law only wanted to cry again.

"It's not over yet," Kidd however murmured against his ear, his voice slow, raspy, as if he didn't even had the strength to speak "It's still here"

As if summoned, the walls seemed to bristle, the black liquid stirring in them, dazed but still alive, slowly regaining composure after Kidd's desperate attack. Keeping the distance, but stalking them anyway, not wanting to release its prey yet.

"We have to get out of here!" Law murmured, panicking again, clutching Kidd against his body as he felt the darkness approaching, they couldn't get to them, not now, not after all this "Kidd! We have to get out of here! "

Law felt Kidd clutch his waist, harder, with a low groan of pain, and then the world began to spin, to undo, to change. Law changed with him. It was almost painful, something that took his breath away. It was something that his human mind was not prepared for, but he still resisted it, he could handle it all because they were not yet safe.

 _He had to protect Kidd_. Now it was his turn.

When Law opened his eyes they were no longer in the cage, but in another room, a kind of antechamber that looked like the temple altar. The rooms and halls of ancient riches and banquets had clearly been a hallucination, a memory of centuries ago. The only thing left of the temple now was this place, its entrails, a small temple of blackened and gray rock, cold, lifeless, without light, corrupted by the darkness that it jailed. There were broken and destroyed benches, a huge gravestone where old sacrifices had to be made, and again, behind them, that well-known rock, shiny, black and broken in half.

Law felt the shadow shifting inside it, surprised by their escape and still weak, but clearly chasing them out of its cage.

"We have to close the crack," Law said instantly, facing the cage. "We have to lock it up again"

However, when he rose from the ground with difficulty, Kidd's weight fell from his arms in a cloud of black smoke that scattered on the ground leaving the shape of a small and well-known black cat.

Kidd was clearly unconscious, Law could barely see him breathing, he had abused his magic and was barely managing to keep the simplest of all the shapes. Law wanted to buckle down again, pick him up in his arms and take care of him until he recovered.

But there was no time, t _here was no time_.

Dip-dip-dip.

His blood froze in his veins. Law turned to see the broken cage, he was so close, so close to end that nightmare. Raising his arms, now with huge white patches covering his dark skin where the shadow had feed from him, Law summoned his power with fury. And now, out of the cage, without barriers, without ancient spells preventing it, it replied.

Sand flooded the room, like a storm, warming his icy skin, stirring his hair and protecting him and the Djinn from the menace. Law felt his own confidence return with it, fear subsiding and a little hope re-emerging in his chest. They could do this. Instantly, Law tried to cover the crack with the burning sand, tried to plug the hole in the simplest way he knew.

But a creature like this couldn't be stopped with a simple physical barrier, with ordinary and normal sand, that creature had to be chained with magic, and the fact that Law even tried to do it this way seemed to infuriate it even more. Law felt it pushing against his magic, devouring his own sand, pushing and struggling to get away in an almost paranoid way, like a rabid animal, infuriated at the thought of Law being able to lock it in again.

Law needed something else, needed more power, needed the desert to stop it.

_But he couldn't ask the desert to change its nature. He couldn't ask it to be something it was not._

But there was no choice.

_But the price he would pay for it would be too high._

It didn't matter. He had to save Kidd. He had to protect him from the horrible, cruel world.

Law shouted to the desert what he wanted, and it seemed to tremble in his hands terrified by it. Sad and astonished by what Law was about to do. The magic then seemed to burn inside him in a different way, tearing out something that was part of him, dragging it out until it slipped between Law's fingers never to return.

All to complete the order that Law had given it.

The sand in the small crack began to change its shape, its color, its composition. It started to become something that wasn't sand.

The shadow in the cage shrieked when realizing the change. With fury it began to push against the walls trying to get to Law, wanting to kill him, wanting to destroy him to avoid being caged again. But it was too late. Law had paid the price. The spell was already done.

The last grain of sand transformed leaving an intact stone The stone seemed to glow in the ancient temple with the magic resurfacing in it. The cage was repaired with its prisoner inside.

It was all over.

Law smiled before he fell to the floor unconscious next to the cat. He had succeeded. Kidd was safe.

….oOo ...

When Law woke again, it was late. His body still felt heavy and numb, his mind dull and confused, and a familiar breeze caressed his skin which felt much more sensitive than before.

They were no longer in the temple. Law recognized the soft bed beneath his body, the red and brown ceiling above his head, the room he was in. They were in the palace inside a mountain, with the huge balcony overlooking the endless desert, a pool surrounded by candles in the deep rock, and the typical decoration of a king's chamber.

They had gone back to the first place where he had seen Kidd and where they had had their first big fight, where Law had tried for the first time to kill Kidd and Kidd has asked him to make a deal. Law wanted to laugh fondly at the memory, so much had happened since then, the journey, the discovery, the strange relationship with the Djinn who had become something indispensable for the dark haired boy. It almost looked like years had passed instead of days. Law himself was not even the same.

Leaning lightly on the bed of fluffy pillows, Law watched his surroundings searching instantly for the familiar figure of the Djinn, but his sight was quickly suspended over his own body.

The fight has taken it's toll on him. His skin had changed, white marks now spread all over his body in a patchy pattern like white paint. The skin there seemed thinner, more sensitive, Law felt a chill run through him when he touched the smooth surface. But that was not all, Law felt the world different, as if his way of perceiving it had changed, his mind felt lighter, his power bigger, as if someone had ripped one of the chains that prevented him from reaching his full potential had been torn.

"Law?" A voice next to him asked.

Law turned his head to face a familiar child of golden, and innocent eyes, and bright red hair. He was standing against the foot of his bed looking worried. His clothes were still ragged, his feet stained with mud. He was still adorable.

"Kidd," whispered Law smiling relieved "Are you ok? Can you move?" His voice sounded slightly strangled as he remembered the nearly broken figure of Kidd in the temple, the little cat nearly banishing before his eyes.

Kidd however nodded slowly, dismissively, as his small body crawled into bed with difficulty until he sat at Law's feet with his arms and legs crossed. His face was too serious and elegant, with a personality too strong for the little appearance of the child.

"More or less. I can't use my magic as easily as before, what happened in the... well... it affected me more than I thought, it will take me a few weeks to recover"

But he would. Kidd would be fine again, without scars and marks that reminded him of what had happened. Law had done it. He had been able to protect someone, the most important person in his life, he had been able to do something great by himself.

A slightly proud and happy smile spread over his face.

"Law" Kid called him nonetheless, looking at him again seriously "Wh-what happened? What did you do? You feel... different, are you okay?"

Law nodded slowly and carefully stiffening at the question. He didn't even understand what had happened, but despite the sacrifice he had done he felt good, he was alive, surely marked and still too tired to do anything, but in his mind he felt it had been worth it.

"I locked the creature back. The desert helped me, well, at first it didn't work, but then ... " What had happened then, his mind still refused to acknowledge it.

"Law," Kidd called him again, tense, with a dangerous, hard look in his eyes, as if the answer Law gave him might bring the end of the world to him.

"... I don't quite understand what happened. The desert wanted something in return, I was running out of time, that thing was going to escape and... I gave the desert what it wanted" he murmured at last.

The silence lasted only a few seconds. Law couldn't look Kidd in the eyes, but he could feel his body tighten and could see him clenching his tiny fists, needing to listen, needing to check that Law was okay. However, it hurt Law that Kidd would blame himself for this.

"What did you give it?" His voice definitely sounded dangerous, cold, hard. Law only kept the silence knowing what would come next. "Law!"

"My humanity" he finally confessed, almost shrinking into the bedsheets and hating himself for hurting Kidd again.

Law felt it in every part of his body. Something had changed, something _fundamental_ had been taken away. He was no longer human, but he did not belong to any other of the classifications, he was an atrocity, something broken. Like the monster in the stone cage. Law didn't know what that meant, but by Kidd's face it wasn't good.

Instead of screaming at him, instead of yelling at him or bursting into another of his fights, Kidd just disappeared as he had done several times now when he needed to think. Leaving him alone in that place again.

...oOo...

The sun was rising between the dunes when Kidd reappeared on the stone balcony sitting on the edge with his feet dangling over the void. He had spent hours wandering, screaming at nothing, and wanting to destroy that horrible world that had stolen something so important from Law. But he hasn't done it. He would never get carried away by rage, he would not repeat that mistake twice, he had sworn an oath to himself as centuries passed in his sand jail. What happened in the temple shouldn't have happened. Besides, he was weakened enough to lose even more magic, he needed to be stronger if he wanted to protect Law from anything that could happen again.

Even so, he couldn't help feeling how his life was slowly crumbling.

During his stay in the temple, possessed by the shadow, fighting against it, Kidd had observed the memories of the creature just as the shadow had devoured his own, and had watched as his entire race had perished slowly through the hands of darkness.

 _Kidd was the last one of his race_. Centuries of wisdom, a race, and an entire culture had vanished into nothingness. If Law had not released him, there wouldn't even be a last loophole of what they had been. And now, being the last, the last hope to rebuild his race, was hurting his mental health and slowly he was falling under the weight of such responsibility.

Kidd wasn't going to be able to do that. He couldn't betray Law for his people, he could not find another lover after the human boy.

His race would die with him.

Also, to make matters worse, Law had lost his mortality, his humanity, in the fight thanks to him who had created the break and who had woken the beast again. Kidd had not noticed it before, the fact that Law had used magic had stunned him at first, but now, when that little glow was gone forever, the fact was inevitable, Law had been human and now he was not.

That could only mean one thing, the only thing that differentiated a mortal from an immortal was the soul. Law had given up his soul, the most valuable thing mortals possessed, to save mankind from what had inhabited that temple. Now Law will live forever, like angels, like gods, while Kidd, as a Djinn, as a mortal with just a long life will end up dying one day.

Kidd didn't know whether to be scared, guilty, sad, or just angry.

The Djinn felt movement by his side and watched Law sit beside him on the balcony in silence. Keeping a slight distance from him. Giving Kidd his space. Kidd observed him. Everything about the boy felt different, his magic, his brightness, even his appearance had changed. He was still a rough diamond, but with the centuries ahead, Law would become one of the most powerful creatures of this world.

Which led to his third and final problem. What was going to happen now? Would Law still want to be with him now that he was immortal? Now that Kidd could no longer offer him anything? When Kidd had been the one who had turned him into this?

Kidd had heard his confession in the temple, and those words had been what had brought him out of that nightmare. But after what Law had sacrificed for him and for all of humanity, Kidd didn't know whether the brunet would continue to want to be with him - remembering every day what he had lost because of Kidd's fault - or if he wouldn't want to see him again.

Because Kidd would never forget that if he wouldn't have entered that temple, none of this would have happened. It will be a constant reminder of his failure no matter what.

"When we started the trip I promised you two things: to leave you free after all this ended and to fulfill you a wish," Kidd began, watching the sun calmly sink under the dunes warming the world again with ruby colours. "Make a wish, Law"

Law remained silent for a moment, as if in contemplation, with the gold of the sun illuminating his new and beautifully mottled skin and giving him the appearance of one of the old gods. The redhead wanted to kiss him, wanted to take him to bed and make him forget the horror they had lived through.

But Kidd just kept the silence, waiting for the rejection. When Law had been mortal and he had had the long life he had sworn to yet stay by the human's side, but that didn't mean Law would do the same. Law had said he loved him, but that had been before the lost. What had happened had been a trauma and that it may be better to separate, to maintain the loneliness for a while and to clear their heads and forget their feelings.

Kidd would respect his decision, it made sense, it had logic, maybe it would suit him too. Maybe Law wouldn't have to do something like that again because of his incompetence. Kidd would protect him from a distance without letting anything ever hurt him again, but he would respect his decision.

Law, however, only bent down beside him to take Kidd's small body, that child he had met centuries ago stealing food in a large city, and deposited him between his legs protectively, almost gently. Kidd didn't even dare to move while Law wrapped him in his arms and kissed his hair affectionately.

"You," Law whispered against his hair "I want you"

Kidd felt his whole body relax, the air reentering his lungs and silent tears falling down his cheeks. He couldn't be so lucky, Kidd had never had a happy ending.

"We have to find out what exactly was in that temple, we have to find a way for it to never get out again," Law continued while wiping his tears with delicacy, saying nothing about it. "I want you by my side, please Kidd, don't leave me, I-I don't want to lose you again"

Kidd groaned as he just turned around to embrace Law, needing to apologize for too many things, needing to compensate him for even wanting to be with him after all he had done, for forgiving everything he did even though Kidd had hurt him deeply.

Kidd wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to give him pleasure again in the stupid fluffy bed in the middle of a lost palace, until the dark man forgot everything else and just smiled at him in that wonderful way. But for the moment he only embraced him, only showed him that he will follow him and be with him until the end of the world, until his last breathe.

For the eternity they would share together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, for the cage where the monster was hiding it was made of a meteorite and it's a reference to the Kaaba, the central piece on the Islam's more sacred mosquee. On other hand, about the mitology, only angels are inmortals, Djinns live very long, and humans are just...well, humans. When I started to write the story, the first idea was too add an angel (Doflamingo) who will help them solve the problem and who will represent the third race and cause a bit more conflict with the pair, but at the end I decided that was very complicated and I wanted this to be a short story so...stuff.
> 
> In any case thank you for the suport, next chapter will be the last one XD
> 
> P.S: If you still wanna read about angels I have a one-shot with KidLaw called "Ruin" with the Angel-Demon plot. And as always if you wanna find me or other autors and talk about this two, you can all join the KidLaw chat goup in skype. XOXO


	7. Epiloge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are, final chater and two days before my degree thesis, I shouldn't be procastinating, but what's life? In any case thanks a lot to my dear beta, piopiomeme, to the people who had commented and to any reader, you are the best.

~ Centuries later ~

Law leaned back on the dark wooden chair and rubbed his temples feeling terribly tired. Apparently, being the high priest of one of the world's greatest religions _and_ sovereign of one of the most powerful cities and empires could kill anyone. But it wasn't like he could send it all to hell or delegate his duties in one of the bloodsuckers he had as followers.

Being the high priest was something that couldn't be avoided. After the disaster that had occurred in the temple centuries ago, both, Law and Kidd, had vowed to find a way to cage that thing forever. After years of searching, Law had found the texts of the ancient civilizations, their rituals, their motives, and what exactly they had locked in the depths of the desert.

At first the duty to strengthen the chains of the cell had fallen on Kidd and Law, but over time the people had joined them, the population had only to visit the abandoned temple where the old darkness lay, to understand that Law and Kidd had reasons to do what they were doing. Soon fanatics had appeared, then the "religion" started expanding its ranks until it had practically devoured the other existing ones.

Law had thought then to withdraw, to leave the boring tasks to the humans and only to watch that the offerings and sacrifices were done in the right way, but apparently that also hadn't been possible. The fact that Law was immortal and that he didn't have a normal look, as well as the legends and rumors telling that it was him who had locked the creature in in the first place -thank you Kidd- made him into someone who could not easily be replaced.

Kidd had been laughing at him for that reason for years. The asshole.

On the other hand, the conquest of Alaistaire had instead been a personal matter. That city of wonders and magic had always been an inconvenience in Law's life. The way they traded with people as if they were objects, the way in which they believed themselves superior to the rest, and how they only looked for their own benefit had always enervated the Sanieri. So when the city's famous soldiers had attacked Law's followers and threatened to provoke another war that could awaken the creature with its magic, Law had been quite happy to annihilate them.

And frankly, as much magic and wonders as the city had, there was not much they could do against the world's last Djinn and the most powerful Sanieri in history. They had hardly lasted a day.

That battle had only helped to cement the popularity and leadership of the couple. Kidd and Law had practically become legends, and subsequently, the adoration and followers only increased as the years passed. Law, then, had laid the foundations of a new government, he had abolished slavery and the Sanieri service, and cleaned the desert of bandits that prevented a proper use of the trade routes.

Kidd, on his part, was not far behind either. His diplomatic skills were staggering, centuries and centuries of making deals and blackmailing people had given fruit, and day after day he manipulated the nobility and neighboring countries into alliances and treaties from which they couldn't escape.

This country and new world would last, Law was sure of it, it had a good base and a good foundation. It would not be so easy to make it crumble after what Kidd and Law had done. Religion and rituals would last, the shadow would never hurt anyone again. People will learn and the world would turn into a better place where children will be able to grow peacefully

Maybe it was actually time for them to disappear and leave the positions of power to others.

Law felt familiar naked and strong arms around his neck and couldn't help but smile contentedly. Yeah, it was time to focus on another major problem they hadn't been able to take care of: rebuilding Kidd's race. Kidd had never said anything about it, he had never asked for anything, but Law had spent all these years studying the scriptures, collecting as much information as he could about Djinns and his culture and it was time to put it into practice.

It was time to give him hope again.

"Are you finished?" Kidd asked into his ear as he began to spread hot and hungry kisses down his neck and ear, slowly, savoring every little gasp from Law as the Sanieri knew he could spend hours doing.

Law nodded happily turning slightly his head to catch the redhead's mouth with his lips in another of those deep passionate kisses. Now that they had all the time and power of the world their sex had become even more interesting. They could spend hours just kissing, exploring each other and not rushing to get their climaxes. Law loved all of their nights together.

"Come to bed your highness, it's late," Kidd murmured against his mouth, his voice sounding tired but teasing, rough, his lips caressing Law' face and finally sinking along his neck to nip gently at the sensitive white skin.

"Later, I want you to see something first" he said, resisting temptation, getting away from the redhead and reaching for one of the heavy magic books he had been reading.

Kidd took it in his hands when Law gave it to him, opened at a specific page. He sighed, then rolled his eyes to make it clear he would rather do anything but this, clearly thinking that it would be another of those books on governments and nations that Law so loved to read. However, as always, Kidd did as Law had asked and looked down, always so loyal, always trying to make him happy.

Law could practically see the moment when Kidd read the title of the page, how the exhaustion disappeared immediately to be replaced with surprise, with confusion, with a little and almost adorable hope.

"Law?" Kidd whimpered in a low, strangled voice, looking up and watching him with caution, as if he didn't want his hopes up before being totally sure.

The spell written in the book was simple, tremendously simple, any Sanieri in Law's service could do it. And with pleasure. After how Law had saved them from a life of slavery and obedience, all the Sanieri of the country had sworn loyalty to him as gratitude. Law only had to raise his hand and one of the oldest sages would come to attend to his wishes.

"Law a-are you sure? This is…" Kidd was shaking, his form fading slowly into the black smoke as if he couldn't contain the emotion. Law smiled absolutely pleased with himself for causing that reaction in the other.

"Yes, the truth is that it is already done, I think it's time to stop worrying about this damn country and start worrying about something more important" he said smiling in that arrogant way he had copied from the Djinn years ago "You"

Kidd simply lunged at Law. Lifting him from the seat with his hands under his ass and holding him against his body as Law wrapped his legs around the redhead's waist and returned the desperate kiss the redhead was giving him now.

No slowness this time, no exploring or control. This was a different thing.

Law wanted to laugh as the heavy book with the simple fertility spell fell to the ground. A fertility spell that for the first time was not made for women, but for a man to carry offspring. The spell specified that it had been created for women with health problems who could not carry a child, or who couldn't give birth safely. Her partner was supposed to carry the baby avoiding her certain death.

Law however didn't care why it was created. It served them the same. They could rebuilt Kidd's race with their own offspring. Law would then focus on another wish he had, one more secret and self indulgent. He wanted to give Kidd immortality too. But that would be a different spell, it would be more difficult, it will require more sacrifices and time.

Law however wouldn't stop till he could find it. He wouldn't stop until they could be together for eternity.

"I love you," Kidd mumbled as he slowly led them to the king-size bed they shared in the deepest part of a palace built in a clift, a palace made for old kings and queens, while he stroked Law's skin, outlining the white marks as he has been doing since Law got them.

Law laughed as he buried his head in Kidd's neck.

"I love you too" and together they will see their kids and grandkids grow old.

THE END


End file.
